Getting the fan’s perspective.
NASCAR leadership has taken a lot of criticism lately for being out of touch with concerns from teams and fans, which is often cited as a major factor in the sport’s decline in ratings over the past decade or so.
The sport has taken strides to try to win back longtime fans after a series of unpopular decisions, which included the addition of stage racing and a playoff format, the Next Gen car that increased parity among the teams, and moving several races away from their traditional base in the south to try to attract new fans in larger cities and media markets.
Leadership has made moves over the past couple years to return to some of NASCAR’s historic tracks like North Wilkesboro and Bowman Gray Stadium, as well as doing away with the playoffs and returning to a simplified Chase format.
And of course there was the lawsuit last year between 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports against NASCAR that seemed to get the attention of executives when it ended up becoming an embarrassment to the sport and its leadership. Leaked text messages calling team owner Richard Childress a “stupid redneck” only reinforced fans’ suspicions that NASCAR executives were out of touch with the heart of the sport, and ultimately ended with the departure of now-former Commissioner Steve Phelps.
It seems like NASCAR came into this season in a good place, with the lawsuit settled and the sport’s leadership seemingly getting a wakeup call that fans weren’t happy with the direction of the sport. Following last season NASCAR ditched the playoffs and also increased horsepower at short tracks after loud calls from both fans and drivers, and the sport’s decision makers seem eager to win back fans who they’ve turned off over the past couple of years.
NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell even admitted that the sport had lost its way and has work to do to try to win back the trust of their fan base:
“We deserted our fan base. So now what you’re seeing us do is … yes, we can introduce the sport to new fans, but here’s how we got here.”
O’Donnell also admitted that NASCAR tried too hard to be like the NFL, and in the process made NASCAR too complicated for potential new fans to understand:
“We probably chased a few too many things trying to be like other sports. We assumed that our hardcore fans would stay with us and newer fans would jump in. … Instead of new fans coming in, they did not understand it.”
And this past weekend at Darlington Raceway, NASCAR executives tried to get a fan’s perspective and see exactly what it’s like to attend a race when you don’t have credentials and an air conditioned office to watch from.
After the Goodyear 400, NASCAR Executive Vice President Ben Kennedy revealed that he and some of his team attended the race as fans, doing everything from buying tickets and finding parking to waiting in concession lines and watching the race from the grandstands:
It’s a move that earned NASCAR praise from Dale Earnhardt Jr., who believes there’s a lot executives can learn from putting themselves in the shoes of their fans:
“He got his team together, his group of folks that work in in the in the organization with him, and uh they all, this is what they did: They all went a different route on how to buy tickets. Some went online, some called up the call center. They all did it differently. And then they locate their parking lots and all that stuff, they go to the pre-race, they go into the Fan Zone, they did everything. They experienced everything, all while taking a lot of mental notes.
Then after the race, they had a 2-hour meeting to debrief about all of this stuff and all of the things they experienced and what they didn’t like, what was difficult, what was hard to do, what was fun, what was good.”
According to Dale Jr., Kennedy understands that there’s a lot NASCAR can do to make the experience of attending a race better for fans:
“I think really, really cool that he himself tasked him, you know, him and his team to go through this experience and this process. They sat in the grandstands and watched the race, they rented radios,they basically got a spreadsheet of what fans traditionally do and tasked each and every one of them to sort of go about it a little differently, but all of them experience the same thing.
He said there’s a lot of little things from after you buy the ticket and get parked, which he said they could absolutely focus on improving that quite a bit.
He said from that moment on it was a lot of little things along the way that he was just thinking needed or could be different or better, and even some good things that they like that they could take to other racetracks.”
Earnhardt says it makes him proud as a race fan that Kennedy would take the time to better understand the fan experience to improve things for those who attend races:
“This is not rocket science… He’s a good dude. I’ve talked to him a lot over the years and um yeah, so this is the kind of stuff that you love to see, you know.”
It’s definitely encouraging that NASCAR executives care enough about the fan experience to actually go through it themselves to see what can be improved. But obviously the real test is going to be whether they actually follow through and make those improvements that will make fans want to spend the time and money going to a race themselves.
We’ll have to wait and see, but it’s encouraging nonetheless.
