NASCAR: We Interrupt This Commercial For A Race
The internet and many viewers became very vocal about the number of long commercial breaks during the Coke Zero 400. Were they right to complain?
Like many others, it seemed to me that there were significantly more commercials during this years telecast of the Coke Zero 400. Now after looking at statistics from several different sources, it was not just me, there were a lot more commercials than usual. Social media lit up last night with people complaining about the continuous commercial breaks as well. For NBC’s first broadcast of 2016, they left quite an impression on NASCAR fans, unfortunately it was not a good one.
Let’s start with the pure numbers, according to cawsnjaws.com, Saturday nights race contained 124 commercials versus just 96 for 2015. That is a huge increase one year to the next for a race that did not last as long. In the amount of time the commercials took away from the race, the last 9 races averaged 19.92% of on air time to commercials. Saturday night it was a staggering 24.74% of the time from first green flag unit the checkered was commercial breaks. That is almost 25% more than the average of the last 9 points paying races.
Then if you want to get to the 2015 broadcast compared to 2016, last year there was 168 minutes of race broadcast time for the 2015 Coke Zero 400 with 35 of those minutes utilized for commercials. In 2016 there was 143 minutes of race broadcast with an astounding 47 of those minutes for commercials. For fans it was absolutely torturous wondering if they were going to ever get to see any stretch of the race uninterrupted.
I have been writing about the issues NASCAR has had with television ratings throughout the season. The network races on FOX had some massive drops including the season opening Daytona 500 being one of the lowest rated of all time. Several of us were hoping that when NBC took over the broadcasts for 2016 there would be a new energy that might enthuse the fan base. They got the fan base to react, but for all the wrong reasons.
I'm feeling bad for the guys in the booth. They've been working hard for like 5 minutes. Surely they deserve a commercial break.#nascar
— Dana Horne 🇺🇸💅 🏁 (@DanaLovesRacing) July 3, 2016
It's like @nascar & @NASCARonNBC are trying to make people attend races by not allowing us to see most of the race on TV. #Commercials
— Ryan (@Isley23) July 3, 2016
Hey @NASCARonNBC there's something going on with your program. Some random NASCAR race keeps interrupting my commercial watching.
— NASCARMemes (@NascarMemes) July 3, 2016
This is just a small fraction of what was going around the internet during the broadcast. Not exactly going to get people to tune into NBC to watch the end of the race when all the social media mentions are like this. When I see a sporting event trending on twitter I check the mentions to see if I need to tune in. If it’s a no-hitter, a NBA game coming down to the wire or a race that is getting exciting. Very little good was being mentioned about the race last night.
Related Story: Five Reasons Fans Already Miss NASCAR on FOX
Let us hope that NBC cuts back on the number of commercial breaks when NBCSN takes over next week. If they do not, we could see the ratings decline pick back up that FS1 seemed to be able to slow near the end of their run this season.