Getty NASCAR fans at Texas.
When Tyler Reddick crossed the finish line first at Michigan for his second victory of the year, the race might have ended but the questions were just beginning. Why does Mother Nature hate NASCAR in 2024? Why wasn’t the start time moved up to try and avoid finishing the race on a Monday? And why is the standard start time in the mid-afternoon anyway?
The running joke in NASCAR circles lately is any city or area that is experiencing dry or drought conditions needs to consider scheduling a NASCAR event because the rain is sure to follow and help improve their situation.
The August 18 race around the 2.0-mile track through the Irish Hills was the latest victim. Rains initially delayed the start of the race. And after reaching lap 51 and less than the halfway point for an official race, officials decided to call it at a day and push the conclusion to Monday.
NASCAR Fans Question Start Times and Official Responds
When NASCAR opted to postpone the race due to weather, many fans took to social media to voice their frustrations about the race’s mid-afternoon green flag and question why officials didn’t consider moving up the time to earlier in the day with such a high probability of rain in the forecast. And inevitably when this happens following any weather-affected race, the next question is why does NASCAR have such late start times in the first place?
This week on the “Dale Jr. Download,” Earnhardt addressed the topic.
”The start times are predicted by and chosen by networks and, they influence that mostly,” Earnhardt said. “And they know what the hell they’re doing. They want to put this race where they feel like it’ll get the best number, right? That’s as simple as it is. It’s not a NASCAR choice.”
NASCAR Senior Vice President of Broadcasting and Innovation Brian Herbst appeared on an episode of “Dale Jr. Download Reloaded” and said there are multiple stakeholders and revealed why the start times aren’t moved up.
The difference in viewership between 2pm and 3pm? It’s probably bigger than you think 👀
“For every hour that we start later, that’s an extra 5% in terms of viewership.”
“Discussions like this happen — there tend to be no perfect answers,” Herbst noted. “We do the best we can with imperfect scenarios, balancing all the different stakeholders that are in the sport. It’s the fans at the track. It’s the fans that are watching at home. It’s the teams, it’s the drivers, it’s the sponsors, it’s the TV partners.
“So in any scheduling discussion that we have, market by market, or start times itself, you’re talking about six, seven, eight, different sets of stakeholders — OEMs, sponsor partners — that we take into consideration whenever we make a call like that. If we have 50,000 people at Michigan that are there watching the race on-site, we have 3 million people that are watching a typical NASCAR race at home.
“The rule of thumb that we use for every hour that we start later, that’s an extra 5% in terms of viewership. So if we start at 3 p.m. versus 1 p.m., that’s about 10%. So 5% per hour, 10% for those two hours. So for a race that we’re running at 3 p.m. that draws an average of three million viewers, we would expect that race to drop to 2.7 million viewers, if we ran it at 1 p.m. — blended across different kind of averages. So you’re looking at giving up about 300,000 viewers or so.”
History Is Repeating Itself
For NASCAR fans who have followed the sport since 2000, this should all feel like Groundhog Day. That’s because fans were enduring and complaining about the same thing 15 years ago.
A December 2009 article in Sports Media Watch reads:
“Fans had previously complained about the trend of NASCAR races being later in the day. In a conference call discussing the scheduling changes, Fox Sports Chairman David Hill acknowledged that ‘traditional, early Sunday afternoon, start times are favored by NASCAR fans who both attend races and watch on television.’ Additionally, ‘research has shown NASCAR fans are entrenched in their tradition of noon to 1 p.m. starts.'”
After listening to fans voice their frustrations with the rain-delayed race in Michigan and the typical complaint about later start times, I did some digging. For fans who’ve followed the sport since 2009, this should feel like Groundhog Day. Check out these quotes.
An ESPN article on the topic included a statement from then-NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France: “NASCAR fans have been asking for earlier and more consistent start times, and we are making this change for our fans, beginning with the Daytona 500 next February. We are revisiting our sport’s tradition of earlier green flags, and the added consistency will make it easier for fans to know exactly when the races are being televised.”
It’s been done before. Will it be done again?
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NASCAR Fans Are Frustrated With Sport Because History Is Repeating Itself