NASCAR Fans Say Prove Your Changes First

By ESPN

NASCAR changed the format of its races to try to boost television ratings and attendance by increasing the excitement during a race.

It appears fans are saying: Prove it to us first.

While the Daytona 500 saw increased ticket sales and improved television viewership, track operating company International Speedway Corporation reported that combined ticket sales for its three races since then -- at Phoenix, Fontana and Martinsville -- have dropped 7 percent. Advanced ticket sales for upcoming races at Richmond, Talladega and Kansas also are down by a similar margin.

Television viewership, up 5 percent for the Daytona 500, was down 10 percent overall through the first five races this year, according to ISC.

"It's going to take time for these initiatives to resonate," ISC president John Saunders told financial analysts Tuesday when reporting results for December through February.

"We went through a period of changes in the sport, not to mention the great recession that really impacted our core demographic, but then when you look at the changes that went on -- whether it was the [unpopular] car of tomorrow, retiring drivers or just that there are a number of things that we're transitioning through, ... that's not an overnight fix. It's going to take time."

ISC, which operates 12 tracks, has had four of the first six races while Speedway Motorsports Inc. has had two (Atlanta and Las Vegas). SMI will report its January-March results in three to four weeks.

Ticket sales for public companies (which have all but three of the Cup events) were down 9.1 percent after the Daytona 500 last year, so Saunders sees the current drop -- a less of decline than the drops ISC saw post-Daytona last year -- as a small step. He said as the road to the playoffs gets closer, excitement will build for the fans as they grasp the impact of the new system and the "playoff points" that drivers are earning throughout the season that can help them get to the championship round.

Last year, any regular-season bonus points only counted for the first round of the playoffs. Now these bonus points -- termed "playoff points" -- are more available thanks to stage wins as well as a scale based on regular-season finish. Drivers can carry those playoff points through the first three rounds of the playoffs.

"When you look at past changes in the sport, a lot of them have been negatively received," Saunders said. "This is the first time that we have really have seen something that has been positively received."

Not all the viewership data is negative. With the 18-to-34 demographic showing a rise of 16 percent in viewership for the Daytona 500 and more than 10 percent for the first five races, Saunders hopes that trend will continue. He said ISC sold 5 percent more youth tickets to the Daytona in 2017 than it did in 2016.

Saunders said he felt Monster Energy's sponsorship has helped with the 18-to-34 demographic. ISC did not cite any specific survey to back up that data.

"They [at Monster] are just getting grounded," Saunders said. "They are just getting their feet planted. Each and every event that they attend so far -- their footprint is increasing. They are very active.

"They are very engaging, very edgy, [providing] very exciting content for the event."

ISC saw just a 1.6 percent drop in overall admissions sales for the first part of the year, but that included a Ferrari event at Daytona that wasn't held in past years. ISC's average ticket price for tickets sold to the preseason Clash, the Daytona 500 qualifying races and the sold-out Daytona 500 was $165, a 3.5 percent increase over 2016.

The Daytona 500 is typically a higher ticket than others. Adult tickets for the next ISC race at Richmond range from $35 to $105.

"We are still a pretty good price value when you compare ourselves to other sports," Saunders said.

Just how big is the impact of television on the ISC financials? ISC took in $45.9 million from the NASCAR television contract for its Daytona events (up 3.9 percent from 2016) compared to $31.3 million in all tickets sold, including the Rolex 24 and the Ferrari event. Wall Street likes those numbers, which contributed to a 3.7 percent increase in overall revenues, and ISC's stock rose more than 5 percent in trading Tuesday.