For the primary time within the historical past of the NASCAR Cup Sequence, a race was featured completely on streaming. The numbers are in and they’re strong for the primary outing. The Coca-Cola 600 peaked a 2.92 million viewers with over a million watching the prolonged post-race present, however most significantly, the typical median age of viewers went down by seven years.
As NASCAR chases a youthful demographic, this alone makes it an enormous win. There have been round 800,000 viewers from the 18-49 demographic, which is greater than any race on cable for the final three years (not less than). And whereas the full viewership is down from the 600 on FOX, which is to be anticipated, it nonetheless beat six of the eight Cup races this yr that had been aired on FOX Sports activities 1.
NASCAR on Prime
Photograph by: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Photos
However what made Prime Video an actual winner on Sunday night time was how they approached the occasion. The sales space was energetic and informative, and so they took the occasion severely (except for the puppet phase). You felt the gravity of it, which FOX managed to do fairly properly for the Indy 500, but it surely’s one thing that has been lacking from quite a lot of their NASCAR occasions. The commercials had been minimally invasive and side-by-side was used consistently. Even with William Byron dominating 283 of 400 laps, the center parts of the race by no means felt boring as Prime went across the monitor to seek out the motion. Stunningly, the ultimate stage went with no single business interrupting the ultimate two runs of the occasion — about 64 consecutive laps.
The addition of personalities like Carl Edwards and Corey LaJoie was an excellent transfer whereas the sales space unsurprisingly nailed it between Adam Alexander, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte. And the best way they defined issues with out patronizing the viewer was refreshing as properly. They weren’t explaining what phases had been or how warning flags on the finish of the race work, however they did throw collectively a extremely informative 30-second phase on the fly to elucidate why Denny Hamlin’s group didn’t get their automotive filled with gas.
The endless post-race present
Carl Edwards and Corey LaJoie
Photograph by: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Photos
However the post-race present was the largest breath of contemporary air. On cable, NASCAR followers are used to not getting a lot of a post-race present because of the constraints of that medium. FOX and NBC have their fingers considerably tied in that regard, however Prime took full benefit of that, giving viewers one hour and 18 minutes of post-race protection the place they introduced in race winner Ross Chastain and runner-up finisher Byron for full sit-down discussions. Group proprietor Justin Marks additionally joined the panel to debate the massive win for Trackhouse. They even interviewed crew chief Phil Surgen in Victory Lane and had been certain to inform the entire story of Chastain’s outstanding comeback, preventing from final to first in a backup automotive to win NASCAR’s longest race.
Talking on his weekly podcast, Earnhardt Jr. mentioned of the post-race present: “The opposite luxurious of streaming is that the post-race is fluid. If we really feel like we’ve received all the pieces finished, and all the pieces we will probably share in half-hour, that’s when it’ll finish. if it must go longer, it’ll go longer. we don’t have an out … And if there was ever a lot happening that we have to be on for an hour and a half, they are going to. That’s the beauty of the post-race.”
Prime bought a complete of 5 races this yr and for followers not keen to open up their wallets simply but for streaming, they might nonetheless choose in for a 30-day free trial that covers your complete run on Prime. Round these occasions, Prime is doing a ton of activation between commercials and highly-acclaimed documentaries like the brand new ‘Earnhardt’ docuseries, which shortly grew to become the No. 1 trending sequence on Prime.
It confirmed that change is typically wanted to shake up the established order, and that is not a knock on FOX. Simply take a look at IndyCar shifting from NBC to FOX and all the pieces FOX has finished for the sequence. Simply handing another person the identical ball will lead to a wholly completely different ballgame. So congrats to Prime, who took the expectations for a NASCAR broadcast and hit that ball proper out of the park.
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