NASCAR rising star Jesse Love believes stock car racing may have a superstar issue, amid growing concerns about the sport’s popularity. The 2025 season has been a tough one for NASCAR on the airwaves, with ratings having been in steady decline throughout the year, especially since the return of college football and the NFL.
Through all 35 races this season – as of Charlotte’s Roval – the Cup Series has attracted more viewers than in 2024 on only nine occasions, averaging 2.441 million viewers, a significant drop from 2.878 million last year, as per Daily Downforce.
Exactly what needs to be done to rectify this concerning trend has been a hot topic of late, with the likes of Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. having all weighed in. Now, 20-year-old Xfinity Series championship hopeful Love has given his perspective.
The Richard Childress Racing star believes there are areas in which improvements can be made, with the most notable being the approach of and towards the star power on offer.
Speaking with The Athletic, Love explained, “For one, the drivers have to be superstars. If an NFL athlete walks in a room, you know it. If a stock car driver walks in, you don’t.
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“I don’t know the exact formula of how you create that, but it starts off with drivers putting effort into it – and I’d say most drivers don’t. And I think our superstars right now don’t always put in the effort that’s needed.”
Love later added, “Nobody watches RC (remote-controlled car) racing and everybody watches NASCAR racing because they tune in for the people driving them. It’s about the person behind the wheel. Making the drivers the superstars again is the best way to do that.”
It is perhaps undeniable that NASCAR’s current stars don’t have the same draw that the likes of Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Jimmie Johnson did during perhaps the sport’s prime in the 1990s and 2000s. In fact, 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace has previously alluded to this in a separate interview with The Athletic, commenting, “You drop me or Chase Elliott or Ryan Blaney in London and no one knows who we are. You drop us in New York City and maybe we get one or two people, right?”
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Aside from concerns about the sport’s stars, Love also cited cultural shifts as reason for NASCAR’s popularity struggles – something Busch has also discussed previously.
“It’s become trendy to talk —- about everything in motorsports, especially NASCAR,” Love said. “There’s a large group out there, and (social media) has enabled this, who will not be satisfied no matter what. I don’t know why that is, and that’s a problem I don’t have a solution for.”
Despite such changes and the need for its stars to step up, Love doesn’t believe wholesale changes are needed, and that NASCAR needs to stay in its own lane and avoid mimicking other sports, although he did note it could do a better job of listening “more to (hardcore) fans and drivers than (casual fans).”
Given Love’s obvious talent and success in the Xfinity Series, perhaps he, and the likes of Connor Zilisch and Sammy Smith, could yet become one of the next generation’s headline names to help lift NASCAR out of its current slump.