Monday Night NASCAR? The Daytona 500 Heads for Primetime!

The idea of running a race on a weeknight has been tossed around for ages.  Most other sports in America do it and see massive ratings.  Both NASCAR and Indycar have thrown the idea out (remember the Thursday Night Phoenix race?) but never has it been attempted.  Until today.  Due to the rain delay on Sunday and more rain Monday morning, NASCAR and Fox have agreed to displace House and Alcatraz by starting the Daytona 500 around 7PM Eastern time.  This put’s NASCAR in uncharted territory.  Prime time network TV is a huge ratings draw, but that comes with a price.  Major competition.  Monday night features The Voice and Smash on NBC, The Bachelor on ABC, while CBS features it’s Monday Night sitcom block with How I Met Your Mother, 2 Broke Girls, Two and A Half Men, and Mike and Molly.  It’s hard to tell how NASCAR will do against this type of competition.  Will they smash the competition like they’ve smashed cars over the weekend or will the ratings end up flat, broke and busted?

The Competition

 Last week NBC (powered by it’s music competition show The Voice) led the networks, followed by CBS, ABC, and Fox.    One positive for NASCAR is that the 2011 Daytona 500 pulled in an 8.2, with 15.6 million viewers.  Referring to the two links earlier in this paragraph that’s more than any one show pulled last week on Monday.   However NASCAR normally races on a Sunday afternoon against relatively little competition except for other sports.  When NASCAR attempted near prime time racing on Sunday on ABC the ratings went down.   Today’s race will feature NASCAR going up against multiple shows that pull in ten million or more viewers at the same time.  Another important issue is that the 18-35 demographic is the more significant in network television than total ratings.  NASCAR struggles with that demographic.  Most NASCAR fans will tune into the Daytona 500.  The question is will casual fans and younger fans in the 18-35 demographic stick around.

The X-factor in the ratings question is Danica

The Daytona 500 is one of the better races to put into the prime time slot.  The race should feature a fair amount of passing and unpredictability.  It won’t be a Fontana style parade in a circle.  What could imperil the ratings is an extended red flag due to either a wreck (as we’ve seen many this Speedweeks) or rain.  Danica could be significant.  If Danica runs up front, or more importantly wins, I would expect a massive shift in ratings as younger fans and casual fans tune in.

A Blessing In Disguise?

We’re in completely uncharted territory here so most of what I’ve wrote may be completely wrong.  I’m not even going to try and predict where the Daytona 500 falls in terms of ratings.  I would expect that the ratings will be better than what Fox achieved last week on Monday.  Past that I can’t say.  Will NASCAR show unexpected strenght in the 18-35 demographic or will The Bachelor manage to outdraw with younger fans?  Just how popular is NASCAR?  Will people chose their regular sitcoms, singing competitions, and reality TV over the Daytona 500?  Will this, like the 1979 Daytona 500, help expand the sport? Will prime time weekday races become more popular with both NASCAR and Indycar (Phoenix?).  I’m fascinated to see how this works out.  The theory of a prime time weeknight race has been thrown around for ages but no one’s tried it.  Now we’re going to see if Monday Night NASCAR can see similar success to Monday Night Football.  To quote Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother it could be legendary.  Or, it could look like Charlie Sheen driving off a cliff.  Since this race is televised on network TV we’ll see the real TV data and not just the spin that the network would like us to see (think Indycar on Versus).  Of course, all of this depends on it not raining again tonight and postponing the race until Tuesday.