DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Brad Keselowski knows he has to be part of the solution. Aside from winning races and contending for championships, the 2012 Cup…
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Brad Keselowski knows he has to be part of the solution. Aside from winning races and contending for championships, the 2012 Cup Series champion feels pressure “all the time” to provide exciting racing and attract new fans to NASCAR, and he’s not the only one.
“The sport’s going through its own set of struggles,” he said this week as he enters his 10th full-time season. And the responsibility to increase NASCAR’s audience “falls in everybody’s hands except for independent media. That responsibility falls in all of the key stakeholders’ hands. I don’t think there’s one person that holds a heavier hand than another.”
At the start of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, beginning with Sunday’s Daytona 500, questions about the future of the sport remain unanswered.
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Like Keselowski, some other NASCAR drivers feel an urgent responsibility to draw new fans to racing or drag long-lost ones back in. Those who have been racing at the sport’s highest level for several years — and who spent their entire lives working their way up at the height of its popularity — are watching fans walk away.
Several longtime sponsors — like Lowe’s, Target, Subway and 5-Hour Energy — have left. Race attendance remains inconsistent but shrinking — although the Daytona 500 is sold out — and TV ratings are in decline. The 2018 Daytona 500 and the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November both hit record ratings lows following a pattern of decline over several years, according to Sports Media Watch.
Combine that with the recent retirement of some of NASCAR’s biggest stars, such as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, and it’s hard to ignore the sport is changing and the solution is unclear.
It’s somewhat surprising that those feeling the most heat are veterans. But they have a better sense of what the sport felt like at its height — and are also more entrenched in their positions. Younger drivers are focused more on winning and securing their rides for years to come.
“It’s all of our responsibility, and I don’t exactly know how to fix that,” said Kyle Busch, the 2015 Cup Series champ who’s entering his 15th full-time season.
