NASCAR’s debut foray into street circuit racing seems to have paid off, especially when looking at the number of eyeballs it was able to capture throughout the race. The numbers had been significant, considering that the main objective to have such a race was for NASCAR to grow its audience and demographic.
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The Sports Business Journal reported that there had been approximately 4.8 Million viewers between 6:32-9:45 pm ET. Therefore being some of the highest NASCAR has seen in recent years. Trying to understand the reason behind this sudden growth in terms of viewership, former NASCAR driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared his thoughts as he tried to make sense of the massive number of viewers.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. shares his insight on the Chicago Street Race viewership numbers
One of the things that Junior believed brought in a lot of viewers was the fact that Shane Van Gisbergen had been racing that weekend. Also, his win on his debut race also sparked a lot of interest within his fan base back home in Australia and New Zealand.
While speaking on his podcast, Junior stated, “Shane (Van Gisbergen) being in the race certainly drew a lot of folks tuning in from his, you know, his part of the world from where he was, where he races where he’s famous. I mean, this guy’s super famous over in Australia with V8 supercars… That certainly made a difference.”
“But anytime NASCAR does anything brand new, the next-gen car. When the next-gen car ran its first race… It was a pretty substantial ratings pop that comes from this brand-new car. Everybody’s gonna tune in and go, ‘Oh, what’s this brand new car got a race like, it’s going to be completely different.'”
Junior feels like NASCAR is at its best time
Speaking ahead in the same podcast, he shared his thoughts on how he felt that NASCAR was at its best time at the moment. He described, “I think everybody’s just tuned in to see exactly what was this going to be like… How entertaining would it be? I think everybody found it to be pretty, pretty entertaining to be honest with you. I mean, just watching the drivers do something they’ve never done before, I think that our sport is at its best. When the drivers in the cars are challenged to the max.”
“Putting them out there on wet tires for the first time watching them deal with any kind of a new challenge that they rarely or never faced. That’s when I’m most intrigued. That’s when my eyeballs are glued to the racetrack or glued to the product. And so I think this weekend was all about you know, seeing the drivers try to climb a mountain they’ve never seen before.”
The Chicago Street race was certainly a success in terms of the broadcast number. But the other factors that Junior mentioned also contributed to the high viewership for the race. Especially the fact that no one had ever witnessed a NASCAR Cup Series car go around a street circuit.
