{"id":133676,"date":"2025-09-10T12:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T12:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133676\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T12:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T12:08:08","slug":"nascars-viewership-decline-nearing-new-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133676\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR’s Viewership Decline Nearing New Low"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASCAR needs a red flag in the worst way<\/p>\n

PublishedSeptember 10, 2025 7:58 AM EDT\u2022UpdatedSeptember 10, 2025 7:58 AM EDT<\/p>\n

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I promised earlier this week that I wouldn’t complain about NASCAR <\/a>putting its 10-race playoff on cable TV, while at the same time going up against the NFL and college football \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 but I lied, of course. Naturally, I’m going to slam them, because the data says I should. And if Clay taught me one thing during COVID, it’s to follow the data!<\/p>\n

The numbers are in for last weekend’s set of races in St. Louis,<\/a> and they’re bad. Like, bad bad. And I fear we’re closing in on NASCAR going down a dangerous path.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is there a chance the Xfinity races could one day soon surpass viewership for Cup races? We’re getting there:<\/p>\n

NASCAR will need to take its lump here<\/p>\n

My God. I don’t know what’s worse: the Cup number, or the fact that the Xfinity race on the CW was only 536k viewers from matching it?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Credit to the Xfinity (Busch) fellas and the CW for putting on a good show this season. I don’t want to take anything away from them \u2013 mainly because I’ll hear about it from someone at the CW. They’re fickle over there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, credit where it’s due, because that series \u2013 and broadcast \u2013 has been the best of all three all season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for the Cup disaster \u2026 it’s pathetic. I always grade on a curve<\/a> this time of year, because NASCAR, for some reason, chooses to go against the NFL and college football. It’s a dumb battle that they will never, ever, in a million years win, but they do it anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, I take that into account, especially when the Cup race in St. Louis goes green right as the 1 p.m. slate of NFL games get into the fourth quarter. That’s an awful formula for success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Regardless, that’s still an awful number. Down nearly 2 million from last year’s second playoff race? My God. That’s a stunning drop-off. Granted, it’s not exactly comparing apples to oranges given that race was at Watkins Glen, but still. That number STINKS no matter how you slice it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And we’re inching closer to NASCAR really pissing on itself here as the Xfinity Series closes in. Do you know how embarrassing that would be for the sport?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don’t think it will happen, but it’s getting uncomfortably close. The next five races are on the USA channel, which means the Cup Series doesn’t have the NBC\/Network umbrella until Talladega in late October.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Frankly, I don’t see where these numbers start to improve. I don’t. Normally, I’d say the Bristol night race this weekend would be a banger, but NASCAR moved it from August to September a few years ago, and now nobody watches because it directly competes with college football.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The series then inexplicably shifts to NEW HAMPSHIRE next week, which is maybe the worst track on the schedule.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gooooooooooooooood luck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vroom, vroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR needs a red flag in the worst way PublishedSeptember 10, 2025 7:58 AM EDT\u2022UpdatedSeptember 10, 2025 7:58…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-133676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}