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 (at the very least). And whereas the entire viewership is down from the 600 on FOX, which is to be anticipated, it nonetheless beat six of the eight Cup races this 12 months that have been aired on FOX Sports activities 1.
NASCAR on Prime
Picture by: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Pictures
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, they usually took the occasion critically (other than the puppet phase). You felt the gravity of it, which FOX managed to do fairly nicely for the Indy 500, however it’s one thing that has been lacking from numerous their NASCAR occasions. The commercials have been minimally invasive and side-by-side was used continually. 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 observe to search out the motion. Stunningly, the ultimate stage went and not using a single industrial interrupting the ultimate two runs of the occasion — about 64 consecutive laps.
The addition of personalities like Carl Edwards and Corey LaJoie was an ideal 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 nicely. They weren’t explaining what phases have 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 clarify why Denny Hamlin’s workforce did not get their automobile filled with gasoline.
The unending post-race present
Carl Edwards and Corey LaJoie
Picture by: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Pictures
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 arms 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. Staff proprietor Justin Marks additionally joined the panel to debate the large win for Trackhouse. They even interviewed crew chief Phil Surgen in Victory Lane and have been positive to inform the entire story of Chastain’s exceptional comeback, preventing from final to first in a backup automobile to win NASCAR’s longest race.
Talking on his weekly podcast, Earnhardt Jr. stated 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 executed, 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 occurring that we must be on for an hour and a half, they may. That’s the beauty of the post-race.”
Prime bought a complete of 5 races this 12 months and for followers not keen to open up their wallets simply but for streaming, they may nonetheless decide in for a 30-day free trial that covers your entire 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 rapidly turned the No. 1 trending collection on Prime.
It confirmed that change is typically wanted to shake up the established order, and that is not a knock on FOX. Simply have a look at IndyCar transferring from NBC to FOX and all the pieces FOX has executed for the collection. Simply handing another person the identical ball will end in a completely 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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