NASCAR’s sudden decline in popularity catches corporate America off-guard

Detroit. That headline alone is enough to make marketing types around the country choke on their corn flakes, but it's even worse than that. When The New York Times, a publication that has been notoriously slow on the uptake when it comes to its motorsports coverage, has finally noticed that NASCAR's seemingly unstoppable upward trajectory in popularity has not only flattened out – it's starting to head downward in a hurry – then you know things are heading for trouble in NASCAR-Ville. In last Sunday's paper, the headline at the top of the Sports section blared the ugly reality: "NASCAR's Days of Thunder Are Giving Way to a Period of Uncertainty." The article outlined the fact that the NASCAR money machine is running out of gas, reeling from a merry-go-round of empty seats, declining TV ratings and a growing resistance across the U.S. to roll over for NASCAR's push into new markets. Funny, but you could almost hear the corporate marketing honchos across America wincing and groaning from here, because after all, they've bet the farm on the idea that the sun would never set on the France family empire – and a lot of people who should have known better are going to get caught up in the wreckage when the NASCAR marketing juggernaut implodes.

How bad is it? The Times reported that from 2004 through last season, television ratings – NASCAR's bread and butter as far as corporate America is concerned – plummeted. Down 28 percent in Philadelphia, 22.2 percent in Los Angeles, 12.5 percent in Chicago and stagnant in New York. NASCAR apologists would quickly point out that the cities mentioned aren't exactly hotbeds for stock car racing "fans," and they would be correct. Fair enough, but how do you account for the fact that NASCAR's ratings in Atlanta dropped 18.2 percent in that same period?

Much to corporate America's consternation, the pendulum has begun its inevitable swing back the other way for NASCAR – and this in just the first year of an eight-year deal with ABC/ESPN, Fox, TNT and the Speed networks valued at $4.5 billion, or a hefty $560 million a year. Not good would be an understatement, but it's about to get even uglier than that for the France family's "racertainment" series.

The fact that the wheels are coming off the NASCAR money train shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, because you could see it coming a mile away. Sky-high ticket prices, empty seats, market oversaturation, too many sponsors creating a paralyzing amount of message clutter, the abandonment of traditional dates and race tracks, cookie-cutter cars that bear no resemblance to recognizable production car versions, too many races, etc., etc., etc. – the France family has provided a working model of how not to keep momentum going. More at Autoextremeist.com