By: DJ DeSpain

You may have heard that the current economy has hit NASCAR hard. Ticket sales are down and television ratings are slumping. But are the television ratings for NASCAR really that critical for the sport? If you don’t think so, consider the following.

NASCAR is the top dog of auto racing in the U.S. in terms of popularity. NFL football has long been determined to be the dominant national ball sport compared to basketball and baseball. The fan base for other sports in the U.S. such as golf, hockey, soccer, and tennis are generally considered to be too small to compare on a regular basis, except for spikes during major tournament events. The real competition, so to speak, for NASCAR is generally considered to be the NFL, particularly in the fall when the two sporting events overlap.

Before we go into the TV ratings, let’s look at some numbers regarding live attendance for NASCAR and the NFL.

The Super Bowl this year had about 71,000 people. The Daytona 500 is considered to be the auto equivalent of the Super Bowl. Daytona International Speedway has 168,000 seats and was said to be sold out this year. The largest NFL stadium currently with fixed seating is the Washington Redskins FedEx Field, which holds 86,484 people. There are several NASCAR tracks that easily top that number by about 60,000 seats.

However, on the other side of the coin, for every NASCAR race per weekend (just the main event, not a full weekend package) where 150,000 fans might show up, there might be up to 15 games played on that same day at stadiums scattered across the country. All those stadium seats combined tops the NASCAR attendance on that day and this gives you a hint of more bad news to come.

Now we talk about the television viewership in the fall, and this is where, unfortunately, the NFL reigns supreme. There are 9 weeks (there are 11 races but 2 are on Saturday nights when no NFL football game is scheduled) between September 10 and November 22, where the two sports are competing for fan viewers on the television.  This is the same period of time for the NASCAR Chase races. On an average Sunday, there will be 2 football games on television at the same time NASCAR has a 4-hour race with no rain delays.

Looking at the 2008 ratings data for the above period, NASCAR averaged about a 3.7 rating, which translated to an average of 6 million viewers, during the Chase races. The highest rated race during that period was not the season finale at Homestead, but rather the fall Talladega race which got a 4.6 rating that equaled 7.44 million viewers. The season ending race at Homestead drew about 800,000 less viewers on TV.

Not counting the games televised on the NFL Network, the NFL averaged a 10.54 rating or 17 million viewers during the NASCAR Chase races. This is almost triple the NASCAR average viewers during that same period of time. Ouch.

NASCAR boasts that it has 75 million fans based on a market brand study. They certainly aren’t at the tracks or watching it on TV. The biggest TV draw that NASCAR can get is the Daytona 500, the first race of the season, and last year it had a 10.2 rating or 17.8 million viewers.

Where are those 75 million fans during the football season if they are not at the track? Race viewings actually go down in the fall. In 2008, the average rating for Fox during the 12 races after Daytona was a 5.7, or 9.325 million viewers. The drop during the 2008 Chase races to 3.7, or 6 million viewers, represents a 35% reduction!

This year’s numbers are even worse. For Fox, there was a reduction of 1.5 million viewers on average throughout its coverage, and TNT experienced about 400,000 less viewers per race. I am certain that the loss will be expected to continue for ABC, especially if they continue the practice of bumping races over to the cable channels if a race runs too long. No appearance of fan loyalty at all if Desperate Housewives is threatened.

While it’s hard to predict anything these days in regards to the economy, I am fairly certain that the NFL will suffer its share of viewer reduction along with NASCAR. It’s just that NASCAR needs it more because it relies so heavily on corporate sponsors to bring in the money. But if nobody’s watching the rolling commercials on the track, then the money isn’t going to be there for the sport and the number of teams will slowly dwindle. Soon, there might be only 32 race teams that can compete on a regular basis. Just like the NFL has 32 teams.

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Note: source data for NASCAR ratings obtained from Jayski.com; source data for NFL ratings obtained from sportsmediawatch.blogspot.com.