Now going on five weeks into the 2024 season, there is enough data present to take a step back and look at the viewership numbers for the first portion of the year.
And to quote a rather Twitter famous member of the NASCAR media, business is boomin’ (cc: Bob Pockrass).
Just this past weekend at Phoenix, Sunday’s Cup race got 4.028 million viewers, according to the Sports Business Journal’s Adam Stern. That’s up 19% from last year’s numbers, when the race coincided with college basketball’s Selection Sunday show and the PGA Players Championship. That mark was also good enough for the title of the most-watched sporting event of the weekend.
In fact, viewership has been up across the board. Vegas was up 9% from the previous year with 4.359 million, Atlanta had 4.546 million and Daytona had 6.0 million even after being rain delayed.
Those numbers are all well and good, and will be intriguing to look at going forward. But just as important to look at, then, is why the numbers are going up in the first place. There may be more reasons than one might think.
It’s no secret at this point that Netflix’s docuseries on Formula 1, Drive to Survive, brought out a huge amount of interest in Americans looking to join in on the fandom. The dramaticized retelling of an entire season left many on the edge of their seats, and NASCAR and its fans alike saw this.
That’s why, during last season, Netflix and NASCAR worked collaboratively on a shorter docuseries of their own titled NASCAR: Full Speed. If you haven’t seen it, check it out, but it alone did plenty of numbers. It was in Netflix’s top 10 the first week of its release, and NASCAR’s socials experienced year-over-year follower gain and traction on social media that were shocking boosts.
Whether or not the docuseries worked to the same extent as Drive to Survive is almost irrelevant in retrospect, but the point is that it did work, and it could point towards it being a key factor in driving viewership right now, no pun intended.
And sticking with the Formula 1 theme, when is the last time it had a competitive race? Max Verstappen looks to be well on his way toward sweeping the field for a second straight season, and there’s nothing sport fans hate worse than having to sit through what is essentially a blowout for hours on end.
As far as U.S. viewership is concerned, NASCAR is still king. ESPN’s broadcast of last weekend’s Saudi Arabian…
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