Ryan Blaney is a young guy, just 31 years old. While he was raised on racing, watching his father and grandfather on short tracks around the country, Blaney also understands why NASCAR is having a difficult time attracting new fans — particularly those in the advertiser coveted 18 to 35 year old age group.
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First, NASCAR drivers are reluctant to speak up or be controversial, lest it cast a bad shadow upon an advertiser or brand. But at the same time, Blaney feels that the only way for the sport to grow is to get drivers to be a bit more open in their comments — and at the same time, advertisers need to cut their driver/representatives a little bit of slack to be more of who they really are.
This way, it attracts interest from non-NASCAR fans in the hope that they eventually become NASCAR fans.
“How can you make the drivers more personable, how do you increase their stardom, and it starts with not only showing the product on the track, it’s also showing these people and these athletes and things like that,” Blaney told RG.org Sports.
“I’ve always said NASCAR is hard to relate to people, to the mass population, because unfortunately unlike football, basketball (or) baseball, you can’t go to a park and play it (race) like everybody can do.
“You can’t just go have a car and go to the racetrack. It’s different, it takes a lot of time and money to do it so people don’t have that connection of, ‘Oh yeah, I played that sport as a kid so I really enjoy it now as an adult.’
“Watching racing is hard to do, so how do you do it in a certain way to where you just get people interested if maybe they haven’t driven before and how do you describe it in a way that they can relate to it.”
Netflix Docuseries Will Hopefully Help
Blaney hopes the Netflix docuseries, “NASCAR: Full Speed”, will attract not only new fans but also bring back former fans who’ve lost interest in the sport.
“I think that’s neat for people to see kind of that aspect of it,” Blaney said. “It’s really important to do those things, to showcase more info about your sport. No matter what sport it is, how do you draw people that maybe don’t watch your sport? How do you draw them in?
“I’ve had a lot of people since that first season say, ‘Hey you know we watched the Netflix show and we didn’t really know much about racing, but we really enjoyed the people in it and this is our first race.”
According to the Team Penske driver, the new fans connected with the drivers and teams, and that connection brought them to the track for the first time with their families. For him, that’s what it’s all about — helping people relate to the sport on a personal level.
He also pointed out how the sport has evolved. Just broadcasting the races on the weekend isn’t enough anymore. Fans want more — they want to see what happens behind the scenes, get to know the people involved, and feel like they’re part of the story. That’s what really draws them in.
