{"id":214239,"date":"2025-10-15T06:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T06:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/214239\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T06:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T06:58:10","slug":"should-nascar-continue-to-compete-against-the-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/214239\/","title":{"rendered":"Should NASCAR Continue to Compete Against the NFL?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NFL siphons views out of any program that isn\u2019t the NFL, but NASCAR has been especially unlucky in competing against the football behemoth in 2025. <\/p>\n

In incredibly unlucky fashion, the last three NASCAR Cup Series races have gone head-to-head against an NFL game being held just miles away.<\/p>\n

The race at Kansas Speedway on Sept. 28 was held just 20 miles away from a Kansas City Chiefs game against the Baltimore Ravens. The race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL on Oct. 5 was held just 15 miles away from a Carolina Panthers game against the Miami Dolphins, while Sunday\u2019s (Oct. 12) race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was, once again, held just 20 miles away from a game \u2014 this time the Las Vegas Raiders game against the Tennessee Titans.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a brutal three-week stretch where fan attendance has been impacted alongside TV ratings, and it comes in the midst of a season where TV viewership is down just under 18%<\/a> from 2024. Not a single playoff race has cracked two million viewers<\/a>, and the series is desperately looking for any momentum it can get.<\/p>\n

With yet another ratings crisis, is it time for NASCAR to stop competing against local NFL games or stop competing against the NFL entirely? Or is there still a way for NASCAR to coexist with football in the fall?<\/p>\n

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NASCAR Playoffs Standings After Las Vegas<\/p>\n

The TV Deal Holds Far More Blame Than the NFL<\/p>\n

Does NASCAR lose part of its audience against the NFL each fall? Yes, but NASCAR has been running against the NFL for its entire history. Stock car racing had thrived in September, October and November for decades, so now isn\u2019t the time to pull the plug. <\/p>\n

If any move was made to shorten the season, it should be replacing the Clash and the All-Star Race with points races, ending the season two weeks earlier and keeping the season at 36 points races. Anything beyond that would be an overreaction.<\/p>\n

As for the NFL home games overlapping with NASCAR weekends? It sucks, but there\u2019s not much that can be done about it. The 2026 NASCAR schedules are already out; the NFL can\u2019t even begin crafting its 2026 schedule until regular season play ends in January. And if a race and a football game are on the same day, shifting the time of the NASCAR race to avoid a conflict would leave it in a suboptimal timeslot to garner viewers.<\/p>\n

No, the real culprit of the struggles is NBC\u2019s portion of the 2025-31 media rights deal. The entire 2025 season is already down to eight points-paying races on network TV (down from 20 in 2024), but the number of playoff races on network TV has been cut in half from six to three.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had seven straight playoff races on cable, and none of them have sniffed two million views. We have prestigious races like the Southern 500 and the Bristol Night Race (which should be held before football season, but I digress) broadcast on USA Network, and it\u2019s only this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway that NBC begins carrying the rest of the season. And by this point, it might be so late into the year that Talladega \u2014 typically the most-viewed race of the playoffs \u2014 might not even move the needle.<\/p>\n

Speaking of USA, the dissolution of the now-defunct NBC Sports channel (that is actually coming back soon<\/a>) has hit NASCAR especially hard. No one looking to watch sports will flip the channel to USA, so it\u2019s zero surprise that the playoff ratings are as poor as they\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n

Having six (or more) playoff races on NBC like last year won\u2019t fix every problem, but it would certainly help. The least-viewed NBC playoff race last year still earned 2.3 million viewers, which is far higher than the most-viewed race of the 2025 playoffs so far.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the series is somewhat stuck in the new media deal, but if there\u2019s ever an opportunity for NASCAR to get all of its fall races back on network TV, it needs to immediately jump on the opportunity. Easy accessibility is the key for NASCAR to weather the NFL season, and if NASCAR ever pulled the plug on racing in the fall, it probably wouldn\u2019t find itself in position to compete against the NFL ever again. -Stephen Stumpf<\/p>\n

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Holding A Pretty Wheel: In the Playoff Era, Talladega Has Become a Strategy Game<\/p>\n

NASCAR Should Stop Trying to Compete With the NFL With This Simple Trick<\/p>\n

It\u2019s absolutely asinine in the year 2025 to think that NASCAR\u2019s viewership is ever going to catch that of the NFL ever again. While the NFL has experienced record growth in new markets in recent years, NASCAR can\u2019t seem to keep its own entertained for a full season.<\/p>\n

That hurts me to say, but it doesn\u2019t take a mathematician to know that it\u2019s true. Just this weekend, NHRA topped NASCAR viewership simply because it had an NFL lead-in.<\/p>\n

With an @NFL<\/a> lead-in of 7.2 million viewers, NHRA slightly topped NASCAR on the most-viewed motorsports chart this past weekend.<\/p>\n

1) NHRA (Fox): 1.872 million viewers
2) NASCAR Cup (USA Network): 1.717 million
3) NASCAR Xfinity (The CW): 745,000
4) IMSA (NBC): 440,000 pic.twitter.com\/smZtfTuqgQ<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Adam Stern (@A_S12) October 14, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

So why doesn\u2019t NASCAR land itself an NFL lead-in? Well, that answer is a bit more complicated if you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in the world of professional football at the moment, so let me lay it out. For starters, in most markets, the NHRA got a lead-in of the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Carolina Panthers game. Any NFL game does well in the ratings, but the Cowboys are one of the most-watched teams in the league. <\/p>\n

The benefit of getting that NFL lead-in game just doesn\u2019t outweigh the costs that would be required to plan for such an event and make it happen on the ground level. The easy answer to stopping competition with the NFL is out of the question, then. So what next?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a very simple trick that could solve this entire equation: shortening the season. That might be taboo to some race fans. But in reality, NASCAR has one of the longest professional sport seasons in the country and requires some of the most strenuous travel and spending circumstances across any professional landscape. It just doesn\u2019t make all that much sense.<\/p>\n

Not to mention the fact that it waters down the product year in and year out. Think about this: how many tracks that currently host two races a year consistently result in both races being good? Very, very few, and in some years, none at all. It takes away from the grandeur of any event when you can just simply see the same thing a few months earlier or later for half the price.<\/p>\n

If NASCAR wants to stop competing with the NFL, it needs to do just that and stop holding races during NFL season. Competing with things like the NBA in the spring and the NFL in the fall is a double-edged sword. If the season started at the same date and ended just before the NFL regular season starts, all that would be competing against NASCAR would be preseason NFL games. The most exciting part of the NASCAR season (the end of it) would occur with essentially zero competition, which should, in theory, be a dream scenario for anyone with an office at NASCAR HQ.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a lot of negative sentiment lately here. I\u2019m NOT saying this is the primary reason, but one factor that can\u2019t be overlooked is we\u2019ve already sailed past what is believed to be the most consecutive race weekends in NASCAR history (22) \u2014 we\u2019re 24 in with four to go.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) October 8, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

With viewership trending the direction that it is, NASCAR is very obviously making a play at trying to appease the fans that still tune in by upping the horsepower on select tracks next season and potentially changing the playoff format. However, that fan base is still dwindling due to something nobody can control: age.<\/p>\n

If NASCAR truly wants to engage the younger fan, these two changes are a great step in the right direction. But the best way to get the attention of the younger demographic is a) being the only game in town at a given moment (which also means you\u2019re the only gambling opportunity of the moment, sorry to say it), and b) building the schedule in a way that doesn\u2019t require them essentially giving up 36 of their weekends a year. No young person is going to pick that, no matter how cool we make the Winston era seem to them.<\/p>\n

Sure, they\u2019ll buy the t-shirts and they\u2019ll wear the hats, but they won\u2019t be watching on Sundays when it counts, because the chances are most of their friends are watching and gambling on the NFL. NASCAR says it wants to engage the younger fan but refuses to do the one thing that would truly capture their attention \u2014 be the only thing that can capture their attention. It will be the organization\u2019s Achilles heel if it doesn\u2019t remedy the situation sooner rather than later. -Tanner Marlar<\/p>\n

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NASCAR Content Director\u00a0at\u00a0Frontstretch<\/p>\n

Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is \u201cStat Sheet<\/a>,\u201d and he formerly wrote “4 Burning Questions<\/a>” for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.<\/p>\n

Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Tanner<\/a><\/p>\n

Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated\u2019s OnSI Network, a contributor for TopSpeed.com, an AP Wire reporter, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host and master’s student at Mississippi State University. Soon, Tanner will be pursuing a PhD. in Mass Media Studies. Tanner began working with Frontstretch as an Xfinity Series columnist in 2022.<\/p>\n

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