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No different than the NFL sucking up every minute of the Travis Kelce/Taylor Swift relationship. NASCAR is trying to reach new markets...they say.
Seems every season we discuss the continuing evolution of NASCAR. It’s might be a poor analogy but much like Harley Davidson’s customer base disappearing as we Boomers get older they as well as NASCAR desperately need to attract a younger generation. We Boomers are fading fast so I might not like the direction NASCAR is headed but they need to save the sport. They need to cultivate the younger generations quickly or they to will soon fade away. NASCAR doesn’t have the luxury of the networks and streaming platforms falling all over themselves to outbid each other for broadcasting rights as the NFL does.
Not quite sure if NASCAR will ever get back to the roaring success they had during the Gordon Earnhardt years though.
Right now I pretty much limit myself to watching the road course races now with Watkins being my favorite.
Seems every season we discuss the continuing evolution of NASCAR. It’s might be a poor analogy but much like Harley Davidson’s customer base disappearing as we Boomers get older they as well as NASCAR desperately need to attract a younger generation. We Boomers are fading fast so I might not like the direction NASCAR is headed but they need to save the sport. They need to cultivate the younger generations quickly or they to will soon fade away. NASCAR doesn’t have the luxury of the networks and streaming platforms falling all over themselves to outbid each other for broadcasting rights as the NFL does.
Not quite sure if NASCAR will ever get back to the roaring success they had during the Gordon Earnhardt years though.
Right now I pretty much limit myself to watching the road course races now with Watkins being my favorite.
I agree with you, and would add in a couple of other ideas. First, NASCAR evolved from it's "southern roots" of bootleggers racing each other, back in the late 40s-early 50s, as we "boomers" grew up and became interested in cars. "Race on Sunday, sell on Monday" became a true marketing phenomenon, both for NASCAR as well as Detroit, and lasted for a long time. But as mentioned, we "boomers" are getting older and/or dying off.
Secondly, NASCAR became very popular because their "product" was the competition between cars that actually could be found, sort of, in any local car dealer's showroom. Today's cars are nowhere near what is being sold to the public, and the true fans know this. In 2024, a "NASCAR spec" race car has as much mechanical similarity to it's supposed "street car" counterpart as an Indy car does. That link has been lost.
And finally, their audience is shrinking. The younger folks today, just aren't as interested in cars, like previous generations were. Therefore, they don't support the racing, simple as that....
It does appear that NASCAR's long term future is rather grim. Yet, NASCAR needs to quickly improve the actual racing on the track quickly or they will lose their audience.
For instance, Denny and a few others, have mentioned that one of the fixes that could help is increasing HP at certain tracks to make passing easier. (Another is tire wear).
Yet NASCAR won't budge on that, because they want to make it attractive for another OEM to enter NASCAR and not all of them can afford the larger engines needed for that HP. Sounds crazy to me.
It does appear that NASCAR's long term future is rather grim. Yet, NASCAR needs to quickly improve the actual racing on the track quickly or they will lose their audience.
For instance, Denny and a few others, have mentioned that one of the fixes that could help is increasing HP at certain tracks to make passing easier. (Another is tire wear).
Yet NASCAR won't budge on that, because they want to make it attractive for another OEM to enter NASCAR and not all of them can afford the larger engines needed for that HP. Sounds crazy to me.
Problem with that, is that the cars are already quite fast, and more importantly, aero dependent, in order to stay on the ground. They don't need any cars getting airborne, and launching into the spectator areas. That would be an immediate death knell for the sport, if that ever occurred.
I guess I am one of those older fans ready to fade away from NASCAR except for watching the few road courses I still enjoy.
It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks and aero packages, tire packages the scrutiny of cars down to thousands of an inch, team charters and much more just makes me long for the days of old and the simplicity of racing.
Safety has come a long way from from those days and if anything I appreciate about this generation of NASCAR is the lives that have been saved due to technology but it’s a rich man’s sport now for car owners.
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