Business backfire: NASCAR hits a speed bump

In the season’s 11^th hour, at a track deep inside racin’ country, six drivers with a crack at the NASCAR title were alive and fighting on the day’s final lap.

The stock-car gods had to be grinning.

But as the leaders buzzed the backstretch Nov. 5, they cut beneath tens of thousands of empty seats at Texas Motor Speedway — a remarkably light crowd despite a tight chase for the Nextel Cup.

The NASCAR bosses had to be cringing.

After a decade of wild growth, during which NASCAR zoomed to the No. 2 spot on the U.S. sports landscape and ballooned into a $3 billion behemoth, the stock-car market hit a speed bump this year. TV ratings for the races have dipped 7 percent since last season and attendance has skidded at scattered tracks — including empty seats in Charlotte, Atlanta and the smallest crowd ever to watch a NASCAR race in Indianapolis.

With the Nextel Cup finale looming Sunday, the business-end backfire has become a hot topic on the hotrod circuit. Pit road pundits question whether NASCAR is paying a price for alienating its old base — deep-fried, deer-hunting Dixieland — by courting fresh markets. With the league looking north and west to lure new fans, it now holds more races in California and New Hampshire than North and South Carolina. Next season, NASCAR also welcomes a Colombian driver from the Formula-1 world as well as Toyota cars. Heck, Betty Crocker is a modern sponsor.

What in the name of Ricky Bobby is going on in these parts?

“We’re going to be slightly back (on attendance this year),” said Roger VanDerSnick, chief marketing officer for International Speedway Corp., which owns 21 tracks across the country. “But immediately jumping to a conclusion that things are dramatically different based on one year vs. a history of growth over 50 years is probably premature.”

'Like looking at the stock market'
“Panic is not setting in,” added Andrew Giangola, NASCAR’s director of business communication. “It’s almost like looking at the stock market. There may be a month where the market is up or down, but we try to look at that long-term graph. … We have not seen a decrease in our fan base.”

Indeed, league fathers, team sponsors and track owners remain outwardly sunny about NASCAR’s tomorrow. And whether they’re filled with high-octane optimism or just offering a bit of spin, NASCAR’s leaders can quickly smooth over the 2006 rough spots.

Glenn Smith / AP file Attendance has skidded at scattered tracks — including empty seats in Charlotte, Atlanta and the smallest crowd ever to watch a NASCAR race in Indianapolis.

After NASCAR almost doubled its TV ratings from  1995 to 2005, viewership dipped nearly every race this season. That included two critical, late-season races in two demographic strongholds: the UAW-Ford 500 at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway Oct. 8, where ratings fell 9.4 percent, and the Bank of America 500 at North Carolina’s Lowe’s Speedway Oct. 14, where ratings were off 14.6 percent.

NASCAR Chairman Brian France has pinned some of that fade on NBC. The network is in the final year of broadcasting Nextel Cup races and is “not going to promote the NASCAR events to the level that they have in previous years,” France has said.

(MSNBC.com is a joint venture of NBC Universal News and Microsoft.)

Next year, NASCAR opens an eight-season TV deal with ABC and ESPN, along with returning partners FOX and TNT — a package worth $560 million per year. The previous TV contract was valued at $400 million per year. NASCAR officials expect a race-day infusion of cool from ESPN, which will launch a slick studio show. ABC, meanwhile, represents a return to the sport’s TV roots, back when “Wide World of Sports” covered select Winston Cup races.

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