NASCAR TV ad revenue down $30M

According to an Advertising Age analysis of TNS Media Intelligence figures, advertisers spent $538.8 million on TV ads surrounding NASCAR programming from January through September of this year, down from $567.2 million in the same time period in 2007.

On December 12, 2005, NASCAR announced its current TV contract: eight years, $4.8 billion with Fox/SPEED Channel, ABC/ESPN, and TNT for the Sprint Cup and Truck Series. That means NASCAR gets paid $600M per year. Add to that the production costs associated with broadcasting 38 Cup plus over 20 Truck races and you are looking costs of about $1B per year, which pales in comparison to the revenue being generated.

The $30M drop in ad revenue means of course that FOX and ABC/ESPN are taking an even larger financial bloodbath with the NASCAR contract then they would otherwise have.

According to a Sports Business Journal report, even NASCAR’s legendary brand loyalty among fans is down. Of more than 400 race fans who were surveyed by the publication, only 42% said they were "much more likely" or "somewhat more likely" to trust a particular product or service that is an official sponsor of NASCAR, down nearly 13 percentage points from the responses to the same question in 2007.