NASCAR President Steve Phelps knows he has the hottest game in town when it comes to motorsports in the U.S. Sure, IndyCar and Formula One have their share of fans in the 50 states, but nothing comes close to NASCAR.
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Given all that, you’d think that Phelps wouldn’t have to worry about any other racing series. And he doesn’t, not exactly. Rather, Phelps has a broader mindset when it comes to NASCAR’s top competition, and it’s not racing or even other sports like the NFL, MLB or NHL.
“I actually don’t view them as competitors,” Phelps said recently on CNBC. “Our competitors, I view more holistically. I think it’s really not just motorsports, actually not even just sports. It’s entertainment. And we are competing for that dollar.
“We are competing for your time and other people’s time, because if they’re not watching NASCAR, are they watching Netflix? Are they watching movies? Are they watching CNBC? What are they doing when they’re not doing that?
“So it’s super competitive. I believe if motorsports broadly is rising, we’re the number one motorsports in this country by a wide margin. We’re going to be the beneficiary of that.”
Phelps and other NASCAR officials realize that the sport cannot rest on its laurels or stand still. It wasn’t all that long ago that NASCAR as a sport refused to expand or think outside the box when it came to new markets. This came after a significant expansion in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
But then the economic crisis hit in 2007 through 2009. Several NASCAR teams were forced to lay off more than 1,000 employees while others folded entirely, and the series suffered greatly.
Now, NASCAR officials such as Phelps understand we’re in a different time and that the series has to expand, move around or continue to reinvent itself to not only retain current fans but also attract new ones, or re-attract fans who may have left the sport.
Despite F1 and IndyCar popularity increases, NASCAR is still No. 1 by far
Phelps sees how F1 and IndyCar have both grown in recent years, even though they’re still a far cry from challenging NASCAR for the No. 1 motorsport in the country.
But that’s also why NASCAR in the last few years has added different locations such as the Chicago Street Race, Mexico City, and now rumor has it that San Diego may host a street race as early as next year.
“If you look globally at motorsports, and then domestically at global sports, in 2018 motorsports was struggling,” Phelps said. “We were struggling, IndyCar, F1, but there’s been a resurgence since 2019 and we’ve all experienced growth, which is helpful, obviously.
“F1 is doing really well here in this country and around the world. We’re doing well in this country. IndyCar is coming back, NHRA, IMSA.”
NASCAR is on the verge of even greater growth, Phelps predicts, not just domestically, but also globally. “I think there’s both domestic growth that we will experience over the next 20 years, and it’s incredibly fertile ground for us to grow internationally,” he said.
“I say that because of the style of racing we have. We are close side-by-side racing, kind of what we would call beating and banging, if you will, and trading paint. That’s a style of racing that people like. It’s loud, it’s a sensory experience, like sensory overload when you go to a race.
“For us, getting people to a race is critical, because if you go to a race, typically you’ll become a fan, or at least you have an appreciation for what it is. And so we just want people to consider us.”
