Will Dale Jr. fans help boost NASCAR ratings?

Earnhardt Jr (C)

A 30-second advertisement starring none other than Dale Earnhardt Jr. has popped up on NBC. Earnhardt, who retired as a driver after last season, has begun pitching his July 1 debut as an analyst when NBC takes over NASCAR telecasts from Fox.

Earnhardt is, as always, chatty and folksy in the commercial, saying, “I’m going to travel around the country, take in some familiar sights [an overhead shot of Bristol on screen], pay a visit to old folks [Clint Bowyer], check in on the kids [Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott], make sure everybody’s getting along just right [clashing stock cars]."

The text reads, “Same Dale. New view," with a shot from behind of Earnhardt, wearing a dress shirt and headset, in a press box calling a race. It is a cute commercial, nicely done.

But will Dale Earnhardt Jr. — as analyst, not driver — bring back the many viewers who have abandoned NASCAR in droves this year?

Maybe some. I’d tune in to listen. Maybe you would, too. I think he will be good, definitely better than the vanilla Jeff Gordon and the worn-out Darrell Waltrip on Fox. But for 20 Cup races over five months? Earnhardt is a fun guy, but 20 Cup races is asking for an awful lot, as he'd say.

And Earnhardt won’t be able to do much about what has unfolded, or not unfolded, on the track. Although NASCAR has said that polls have determined that two of three avid fans 18 and over think stage racing has improved the product, others keep saying it is a turn-off.

As NASCAR has tried to market its younger drivers, four veteran drivers over 30 — Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Bowyer — have combined to win all but two of 14 Cup races this year. Joey Logano, 29, is the only driver under 30 in the top eight of the standings.

Elliott, the 22-year-old son of the former champion Bill Elliott, was all but handed Earnhardt’s long-held title as NASCAR’s most popular driver, but Elliott is now 0-for-91 as a Cup driver, and he lags in 13th place in the standings, just under seven-time champ Jimmie Johnson.

The commotion that Bubba Wallace caused by finishing second at the season-opening Daytona 500 has all but faded. Wallace, the only African-American Cup driver, is in 23rd place in the standings, two positions behind the other top rookie, 20-year-old William Byron.

When I wrote last month about fans abandoning NASCAR, several fans wrote that they stopped tuned out because they felt the racing was boring, it seemed like the same drivers won all the time, there were too many commercials, and races were too long. Earnhardt can’t do anything about that stuff.

He can tell funny stories, though, and I hope he is critical if something needs to be criticized, even playfully. NASCAR’s TV ratings have nose-dived this year, with Sports Media Watch reporting that ratings of every Cup race through the Coca-Cola 600 are down by double digits this season, with all but one race hitting an all-time or decade-plus low.

Sunday’s race at Pocono, won by Truex, launched what is regarded as the middle of the NASCAR season — the seemingly endless 13-race segment that leads to the 10-race playoffs. Earnhardt won’t be calling the first three races of those 13, but he will be around in July.

Actually, he has been around a lot already, popping up on live interviews of NBC Sports’ coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals to promote NBC’s NASCAR coverage. Note that NBC did not have the other three guys who will be in the booth: Rick Allen, Steve Letarte and Jeff Burton.

Four announcers in one booth will be a challenge, though, and four announcers means Earnhardt won’t be hogging the microphone, as he joked about in a tweet about the planned setup: “Everyone’s in the booth. I’ll be talking when the others aren’t talking. Heck, I may talk even when they are talking. Except when Rick talks. No one talks when Rick talks."

Allen still will be the play-by-play announcer, not Earnhardt, so he may not get as much airtime as he should, or as much as would be needed to really pull up the ratings. But keep these two numbers from the July 2017 race from Chicago in mind: a 1.4 rating and 2.7 million viewers.

If an appearance from Earnhardt can help NBC match those statistics, NBC’s advertising and marketing push of Earnhardt will have been worth it. If they do better, NBC and NASCAR will be jumping for joy, because this is a series that could really use a victory or two now.

So it is time to drop the hammer already. What do they have to lose? Dave Caldwell/Forbes