After hosting a plethora of doubleheaders in 2020 to make up for the races lost to the eight-week break in action, NASCAR hosted its lone Cup Series doubleheader at Pocono this weekend.
The fans turned out in droves and the action was aplenty, but the ratings were far from numbers that NASCAR and its fans hoped to see.
That’s left this writer – and NASCAR alike – with some questions; maybe the largest being, is it worth it to run the double dipped weekend at Pocono?
I’ll dive into it as far as I can.
Now, attendance, on-track product, and ratings are all separate entities that go into each race weekend. Just because a lot of fans show up doesn’t mean that they’ll get to see the best race ever or people from around the country will tune in, either.
They’re all independent causes that play to the effect of whether or not Pocono will continue to host a doubleheader each year. Remember, the idea was originally only brought up to consolidate NASCAR’s schedule ahead of the 2020 Olympics before they were cancelled.
Going into each of them, though, Pocono’s attendance was stifling.
NASCAR doesn’t release its at-the-track attendance figures, but the grandstands were packed and a source indicated that the track expected upwards of 150,000 people to riddle the facility when including the infield with that number.
That will always make for a good environment at a sporting event, no matter what type of action is being displayed. The more people, the more energy surrounding whatever it may be.
It was the most people I've ever seen at Pocono.
— Spencer Gogol (@spencergogol) June 29, 2021
And those fans, this weekend, got to watch two of the more entertaining races of the season.
Kyle Larson was leading on the last lap when his tire gave way, giving Alex Bowman a win on Saturday. Then we got a fuel milage thriller on Sunday afternoon.
The storylines, the action, albeit luckily for NASCAR, were there.
The ratings were simply a different story.
Saturday’s race logged just a 0.90 rating, down from a 1.63 mark from last year when the race was on FOX’s cable network.
In 2020, FOX outdrew Saturday’s race on FS1 on Sunday, despite how much smaller the potential audience is on the channel. Obviously, there was a lot less to compete with, but it’s notable.
The biggest takeaway here is Saturday.
🔺@PoconoRaceway ratings on NBCSN:
◼ Race No. 1️⃣ on Saturday: 0.90 rating and 1.448 million viewers (Last year: 1.63 rating and 2.570 million on @FoxTV).
◻ Race No. 2️⃣ on Sunday: 1.49 rating and 2.446 million viewers (Last year: 1.62 rating and 2.660 million on @FS1). pic.twitter.com/HONVi1no9u
— Adam Stern (@A_S12) June 29, 2021
Is it worth the ratings bust to run the first race of the doubleheader on Saturday afternoon?
It’s simply unrealistic to think Saturday’s ratings can ascend to a level of a normal Sunday race in that Saturday timeslot at Pocono.
They can’t move it to a night race because the track doesn’t have lights – it’s massive, not suggesting that it should. They likely don’t want to take one of their cable broadcasts away for a Saturday race, but at the same time maybe that’s something NASCAR could go back to.
This is all in a decision that will be made in the next few weeks, too. The series will announce its 2022 schedule later this summer, and all of these questions will be weighed out and planned to accordingly.
After seeing 2021’s shakeup, there’s no telling where the tour might put dates next season.
Kyle Busch said, after winning the second Pocono race on Sunday, that NASCAR should, “Spread the wealth a little bit more,” and not go to a single track on the schedule twice in the same year.
What an adjustment that would be.
Basically, NASCAR is going to do its best to attack that ratings issue.
I want to think that Pocono will be back in the same form next season. The racing that track produced even with the unimpressive package was phenomenal and that amount of fans in Long Pond is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. I was at the World of Outlaws’ Jackson Nationals over the weekend, so I didn’t get to see much of the broadcast for the race, but I hope they covered that angle well.
All of the people there got to see a hell of a pair of races, and even if the ratings stay down in 2021, I hope to see Pocono right back in that same spot in the schedule.
