Should College Football Warily Eye The Decline of Nascar?

When Nascar was Nascar, minimum rules, just weight, horsepower and dimensions were dictated. You could build your car in your own garage(see Bill Elliot).

And this........

Yes. CF better watch the way the play with the rules. NASCAR has turned me off (and I have turned them off) with the way they manipulate rules for one driver or owner or brand one race and then another next race. CF is doing the same with me with their illegal hitting crap. One game a player gets ejected and the next he doesn't. Just like NASCAR. It is turning me off, seriously.

tidegrandpa said:

When Nascar was Nascar, minimum rules, just weight, horsepower and dimensions were dictated. You could build your car in your own garage(see Bill Elliot).

And this........

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Way before Bill Elliott ever picked up a wrench you had The Alabama Gang, Bobby, Donnie and Red Farmer. People could identify with the cars and drivers back in the 70-90's. ESPN did a great job when they first started broadcasting the races back in the 80's. If I am FOX and NBC, I buy out the TV contract and let NASCAR find a new tv home. The tv networks paid them billions for tv rights and the product I saw Sunday was a joke.

bama2112 said:

Way before Bill Elliott ever picked up a wrench you had The Alabama Gang, Bobby, Donnie and Red Farmer. People could identify with the cars and drivers back in the 70-90's. ESPN did a great job when they first started broadcasting the races back in the 80's. If I am FOX and NBC, I buy out the TV contract and let NASCAR find a new tv home. The tv networks paid them billions for tv rights and the product I saw Sunday was a joke.

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Agreed, don't forget Fireball Roberts and Fred Lorenzen. I couldn't watch Sunday and I've been to that race a bunch of times back then.

I used to absolutely love Nascar. I grew up watching football on Saturday and the races on Sunday afternoon. In my opinion Nascar started going downhill about the time Fox started making it a circus. I won't get into the reasons I don't like Fox sports but the sponsor thing is just ridiculous in my opinion. These guys need sponsors to make money and I get that, but any non bias observer would say it's out of hand.
I don't watch it anymore.

TideEngineer08 said:

They alienated their core fanbase. It's that simple.

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Without question and in many ways.

TideEngineer08 said:

Darlington was a historical race track, one of the main races every year like Daytona and Talladega. And like those other two tracks, it was one of the venues that got 2 races per year. They dumped one of those races in favor of one of the newer sites, which was not in the South. I can't remember exactly when this happened, but it was probably 15 years ago, or so. That is just one of many moves that NASCAR has made over the past 20 years in an effort to take the sport to the mainstream. It backfired with me, as I used to watch every Sunday or Saturday night. I haven't watched a NASCAR race in probably 10 years now.

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Following the sport at the time, here's what basically happened. California and Texas built two new tracks, North Wilkesboro in NC closed because it needed work (the guy who built Texas bought NW to shut it down), and Kansas City built a track. All 3 of these tracks were boring but the phenomenon was new (like when "The Jay Leno Show" popped a great rating the first night and then went off the air six months later).

The tracks starting pushing their leverage and wanted extra dates. They had run the Southern 400 on Labor Day weekend at Darlington since right after the dinosaurs died and in the spring of 2003 they had a phenomenally competitive race there...they introduced "the Chase" for 2004 and took the Labor Day tradition away and gave them a date on Mother's Day - the absolute worst drawing day as their prior history had shown. They used to run Rockingham as the second race of the year - because February in North Carolina, you know, has Daytona July 4 beach weather. The race would constantly get delayed.......in fact, the year Earnhardt got killed, the race got moved to Monday. They went from two dates at Rockingham to NONE by 2005.

Simple math: in less than ten years you take FIVE races out of the Carolinas and give four to new tracks in CA and TX and one to Kansas City...and once the new feel is gone, you've lost two sets of people. The Carolina fans felt betrayed......just like when Jim Crockett promotions moved Starrcade out of Greensboro, which had had Turkey Day wrassling since 1961 (and he went out of business less than a year later after making $22 million just two years before). There IS more of a connection with wrassling and NASCAR.

They also had no choice but to do away with the personalities issue. After three fatalities in less than a year, the last thing they needed was for two guys to get into it on the track and somebody to get killed - especially an innocent bystander like a pit crew member or someone who happened to be down there.

TideEngineer08 said:

As others have mentioned, college football has a much more national fanbase than does NASCAR. Still, things have happened and could continue to happen that would cause the decline of its popularity. But it will be far more multifaceted than the decline of NASCAR. JMO.

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NASCARs rise AND fall were both perfect storms. The rise coincided with more and more people getting cable and building a fan base on ESPN throughout the 1980s, the mostly rising economy of 1983-2008 (admitting a sag in 1990-91), larger than life personalities, compelling stories (Alan Kulwicki, Jeff Gordon's rise and dominance), expansion, the major league baseball strike of 1994 (in all honesty, I know several of the hardcore fans back in the day who began watching in August 1994 when they no longer had baseball on the weekends), and spectacular crashes but nobody dying (when Adam Petty and then Kenny Irwin died in 2000, they were the first driver deaths in NASCAR since February 1994), and a very exciting on track product.

The single biggest contributor to their fall IN MY OPINION was the disastrous purchase of the broadcast rights by Fox. Fox brought the same condescending corporate screen clutter to NASCAR they took to the NFL, where they plaster all manner of stuff all over the screen during the game coupled with third-grade sound effects. In their very first race, their love for showing commercials caused them to not be live when "the Big One" crash took out about half the field on the back straightaway. That can happen, of course, to any broadcast company...but then they compounded that one by focusing on Earnhardt's crash and barely catching the end of the race where Michael Waltrip won, and then had the misfortune of the sport's biggest personality dying in the first race they covered.

On top of that cluster, Fox then doubled down on stupid - they required race sponsors (who had already shelled out bucks) to purchase additional commercial time. Cracker Barrel told them to go screw themselves and so Fox retaliated by REFUSING to call the Atlanta spring race in 2001 "the Cracker Barrel 500," choosing instead to say "Winston Cup racing live from Atlanta presented by UPS" (who had shelled out some bucks).

Cracker Barrel sued. Never heard how it came out....but holding race sponsors for ransom AFTER the fact is not exactly a smart idea when times get bad.

Fox then decided to throw its weight around......their contract was split with NBC, who broadcast the 2002 Daytona 500. Fox wasn't happy to be starting their big TV season with the Rockingham track so they then demanded a 'better race' (looking down their collective corporate noses at the great unwashed in NC) to start their season. NASCAR told them where to stick it and stuck them with Rockingham for the first race in 2002.

Not so coincidentally, it was only about 16 months later they announced new changes.....like Rockingham is gone and we're going to that big track in California right after Daytona.

The 2003 Daytona 500 was called after about 115 laps due to rain. Good thing, too - because Fox spent much more time away from the track showing commercials than they showed any of the actual boring race. It reminded me of a study of the 1988 Olympics that showed that for every 60 minutes they had of broadcast time, NBC showed 34 minutes of commercials and 26 minutes of Olympics...and this was before they would split screen it.

Fox Sports contributed as much to NASCAR's demise as their other self-imposed stupid decision making did.

Then Jimmie Johnson began winning all the races at a more blistering pace than Jeff Gordon even had. That didn't help. They turned the whole thing into where rather than competition they all had the same bland and boring machine and a driver left to figure it all out on his own.

They were already teetering and then came the Great Recession. And that killed the rest of the sport. Folks could no longer afford to shell out over $100 a ticket for a family of four plus concessions, parking, and all the colorful (expensive) garb. My Dad became a season ticket holder at Texas Motor Speedway in 2008. His seats were right as you head into turn one - perfect seats. Paid a fortune for them.

By 2010, I could go pay $50 for a cheap seat and then go sit by them in their expensive ones and no usher would even check my ticket. They began sending my Dad extra freebies so my son and I took in several races.

Other than the races I've seen live, I've only seen parts of 2-3 races since 2009, usually the Daytona 500.

I don't see CFB having that problem. But they ARE going to have a bowl game problem - they already do.

Bowl games went from being meaningless exhibitions to 'meaningless exhibitions nobody in their right minds would actually buy a ticket to watch in person.'

This what I was talking about in my little reply about manipulating the rules. I should have mentioned the sponsors too because in my mind they go hand in hand with the rules. Childress (I think) had one year to get rid of his AT&T sponsor because the Winston Cup had become the Sprint Cup and they did not want AT&T one anyone's car.

Now that alone shows what a sissy little bunch of people run NASCAR. They run around spending their time fluffing up their sponsor and spend the rest of their time fluffing up the Networks -- and then spend their spare time manipulating their rules.

UntouchableCrew said:

The biggest concern with regard to the future of football (Pro, college, high school, etc.) is safety. The more we learn about concussions and CTE the more it's going to change the game, decrease participation, and lead to changes that people aren't going to like.

I'm not overly worried about the rest of it.

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completely agree on the safety and concussion issue. We are already seeing it here in GA where lacrosse is now the number one participant sport over football

gtgilbert said:

completely agree on the safety and concussion issue. We are already seeing it here in GA where lacrosse is now the number one participant sport over football

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I recently returned to my former High School to take in a game on a Friday night -- the varsity team had less than 25 guys dressed for the game. When I played (12 years or so ago) we had at least 40... Sadly (but understandably) more and more parents aren't going to feel comfortable letting their boys play.

cuda.1973 said:

Well, NASCAR has turned into rasslin'.

It is no longer about the cars, and which one is baddest, can go the fastest, for the longest period of time. (They are all the same, except for all the stinking decals.)

It is now about the drivers, and the roles they play.

The Hero.
The Heel.
The Baby Face.
They also now have The Babe. (Never seen anyone get as much face time, in the media, who has accomplished diddly-squat.)

Schmaltz.

CFB isn't that bad.................yet. ESPN is working on it, though.

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From what I have read, she's close to announcing her retirement due to over a dozen concussions during her career.

I think it was the recession more than anything else that caused sponsorship problems, what with the cost involved. The track situation some mentioned was another big problem. NASCAR in Chicago, Iowa, L.A., Sonoma, seriously? Atlanta always had attendance problems. Last time I went to a race there, we were in stopped traffic 2 hours before the time for the green flag and didn't get to our seats until after 70 laps had been run and a major crash had taken out several cars. And with my new wide screen and sound system, I have a much better seat, but I still watch every week. CFB has some of the same problems as nfl , too much time waiting for tv commercials for the play to resume. It's brutal waiting on the sun side of the stadium any time before Oct or Nov for the game to resume. All of Bama's games are on tv now, and I now prefer that due to travel time, ticket costs, refreshments and parking. But every time a grandson reaches that age, I still have to make the trip at least once a year. Waiting or not they still come away awed by it all. The last of seven said this year, G'pa are we going to Bryant Denny this year? If I make it that far, we are, came the answer.

I gotta agree that it's apples and oranges to a large degree, but I see some of the similarities.

The biggest challenge is safety. Mommas and Daddies want their kids to be safe, but unless we go back to leather helmets, football will always be a dangerous sport.

How does football balance that danger with more safety without changing the game to resemble something other than football?

Poor leadership is a big reason I see. Brian France has done a lousy job since taking over for his dad in 2003. I absolutely hate "The Chase" system and wish they'd go back to the old system. Under the old system, every race counted the same and it rewarded the best driver over the course of the season. Now with The Chase, if it's obvious your favorite driver is going to finish in the top 16, there's not much reason to watch the races up until the Chase. And by the time the Chase gets underway, football season is already in full swing. NASCAR is not a good fit for a playoff system.

I definitely think there is a relation between the two despite the larger overall appeal of football. It's like how many people no longer like professional sports, myself included for the most part. The power brokers seem to always take the sport out of the sport or change the rules to where the game is barely recognizable. This may bring some immediate entertainment dollars while attracting new fans, but it loses the real fans that stay through thick and thin.

I think college football is definitely having this problem right now. The game has been changed. The rules always seem to favor the offensive side of the ball. Most real fans don't seem to enjoy 60-54 games.
Commercials are too long and too often. I have no problem with several commercials because I realize that they pay for me to see the game very inexpensively, but it is getting more than ridiculous.
Personally, I also hate the way they do replay. It is crazy. I think there were three straight plays in the Ole Miss game this year that were reviewed and took around 20 minutes to play three plays. Give each coach one challenge per half and move on with the dang game.
Anyway, as I have said here hundreds of times before, take care of the game, and the money will be there. Take care of the money, and the game goes away.

Redwood Forrest said:

Yes. CF better watch the way the play with the rules. NASCAR has turned me off (and I have turned them off) with the way they manipulate rules for one driver or owner or brand one race and then another next race. CF is doing the same with me with their illegal hitting crap. One game a player gets ejected and the next he doesn't. Just like NASCAR. It is turning me off, seriously.

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I agree. Also the lawyers will eventually find a way to attack the physicality of the game itself. Then the NCAA and sponsors; they will dilute the College Football regular season by expanding the play-off -- that will take a toll. The decline is coming so lets just enjoy the twilight of this great sport. I no longer care to watch the NFL--one day I will no longer care to watch college football. I've already begun to lose interest due to the rule changes and insufferable commercial time outs.

selmaborntidefan said:

Without question and in many ways.



Following the sport at the time, here's what basically happened. California and Texas built two new tracks, North Wilkesboro in NC closed because it needed work (the guy who built Texas bought NW to shut it down), and Kansas City built a track. All 3 of these tracks were boring but the phenomenon was new (like when "The Jay Leno Show" popped a great rating the first night and then went off the air six months later).

The tracks starting pushing their leverage and wanted extra dates. They had run the Southern 400 on Labor Day weekend at Darlington since right after the dinosaurs died and in the spring of 2003 they had a phenomenally competitive race there...they introduced "the Chase" for 2004 and took the Labor Day tradition away and gave them a date on Mother's Day - the absolute worst drawing day as their prior history had shown. They used to run Rockingham as the second race of the year - because February in North Carolina, you know, has Daytona July 4 beach weather. The race would constantly get delayed.......in fact, the year Earnhardt got killed, the race got moved to Monday. They went from two dates at Rockingham to NONE by 2005.

Simple math: in less than ten years you take FIVE races out of the Carolinas and give four to new tracks in CA and TX and one to Kansas City...and once the new feel is gone, you've lost two sets of people. The Carolina fans felt betrayed......just like when Jim Crockett promotions moved Starrcade out of Greensboro, which had had Turkey Day wrassling since 1961 (and he went out of business less than a year later after making $22 million just two years before). There IS more of a connection with wrassling and NASCAR.

They also had no choice but to do away with the personalities issue. After three fatalities in less than a year, the last thing they needed was for two guys to get into it on the track and somebody to get killed - especially an innocent bystander like a pit crew member or someone who happened to be down there.




NASCARs rise AND fall were both perfect storms. The rise coincided with more and more people getting cable and building a fan base on ESPN throughout the 1980s, the mostly rising economy of 1983-2008 (admitting a sag in 1990-91), larger than life personalities, compelling stories (Alan Kulwicki, Jeff Gordon's rise and dominance), expansion, the major league baseball strike of 1994 (in all honesty, I know several of the hardcore fans back in the day who began watching in August 1994 when they no longer had baseball on the weekends), and spectacular crashes but nobody dying (when Adam Petty and then Kenny Irwin died in 2000, they were the first driver deaths in NASCAR since February 1994), and a very exciting on track product.

The single biggest contributor to their fall IN MY OPINION was the disastrous purchase of the broadcast rights by Fox. Fox brought the same condescending corporate screen clutter to NASCAR they took to the NFL, where they plaster all manner of stuff all over the screen during the game coupled with third-grade sound effects. In their very first race, their love for showing commercials caused them to not be live when "the Big One" crash took out about half the field on the back straightaway. That can happen, of course, to any broadcast company...but then they compounded that one by focusing on Earnhardt's crash and barely catching the end of the race where Michael Waltrip won, and then had the misfortune of the sport's biggest personality dying in the first race they covered.

On top of that cluster, Fox then doubled down on stupid - they required race sponsors (who had already shelled out bucks) to purchase additional commercial time. Cracker Barrel told them to go screw themselves and so Fox retaliated by REFUSING to call the Atlanta spring race in 2001 "the Cracker Barrel 500," choosing instead to say "Winston Cup racing live from Atlanta presented by UPS" (who had shelled out some bucks).

Cracker Barrel sued. Never heard how it came out....but holding race sponsors for ransom AFTER the fact is not exactly a smart idea when times get bad.

Fox then decided to throw its weight around......their contract was split with NBC, who broadcast the 2002 Daytona 500. Fox wasn't happy to be starting their big TV season with the Rockingham track so they then demanded a 'better race' (looking down their collective corporate noses at the great unwashed in NC) to start their season. NASCAR told them where to stick it and stuck them with Rockingham for the first race in 2002.

Not so coincidentally, it was only about 16 months later they announced new changes.....like Rockingham is gone and we're going to that big track in California right after Daytona.

The 2003 Daytona 500 was called after about 115 laps due to rain. Good thing, too - because Fox spent much more time away from the track showing commercials than they showed any of the actual boring race. It reminded me of a study of the 1988 Olympics that showed that for every 60 minutes they had of broadcast time, NBC showed 34 minutes of commercials and 26 minutes of Olympics...and this was before they would split screen it.

Fox Sports contributed as much to NASCAR's demise as their other self-imposed stupid decision making did.

Then Jimmie Johnson began winning all the races at a more blistering pace than Jeff Gordon even had. That didn't help. They turned the whole thing into where rather than competition they all had the same bland and boring machine and a driver left to figure it all out on his own.

They were already teetering and then came the Great Recession. And that killed the rest of the sport. Folks could no longer afford to shell out over $100 a ticket for a family of four plus concessions, parking, and all the colorful (expensive) garb. My Dad became a season ticket holder at Texas Motor Speedway in 2008. His seats were right as you head into turn one - perfect seats. Paid a fortune for them.

By 2010, I could go pay $50 for a cheap seat and then go sit by them in their expensive ones and no usher would even check my ticket. They began sending my Dad extra freebies so my son and I took in several races.

Other than the races I've seen live, I've only seen parts of 2-3 races since 2009, usually the Daytona 500.

I don't see CFB having that problem. But they ARE going to have a bowl game problem - they already do.

Bowl games went from being meaningless exhibitions to 'meaningless exhibitions nobody in their right minds would actually buy a ticket to watch in person.'

Click to expand...

I totally agree with this. Fox Sports is really bad.

It all comes down to the dollar. It's funny how nascar can come up with the ole "debris on track" caution to get cars bunched back up to continue the 190MPH advertising. In future football, you'll see changes to allow more advertising (can we say more timeouts per half). You may also see a weight limit on players for safety.

Btw, let me pop another excuse NASCAR gives us.....the Recession is what caused fewer people to go to the track.

Okay, fine.


If your sport is so popular, shouldn't your TV ratings have INCREASED then?????

Bristol used to be an impossible ticket to get. It hasn't sold out in years, and this was a venue that used to sell out even before the NASCAR boom.

2 years ago when Great Clips was the sponsor for the Atlanta race. You received up to 2 tickets with every haircut. And guess what there were still empty seats. I dont know who is running Nascar but Brian France and his sister are odds the New York Time wrote an article about the demise of Nascar.