What’s up with NASCAR’s declining TV ratings?

If Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn't winning, NASCAR isn't growing

It's not an industry secret that NASCAR's television partners are not exactly thrilled with the television rating numbers generated from this season's broadcasts of the Sprint Cup Series.

Despite the added excitement of a revamped Sprint Cup Chase For The Championship, the viewer numbers have repeatedly declined from the same event the year before.

One would have thought that Talladega would have been a major exception.

After all, it's the Talladega Super Speedway the home of the big one, the speedway where anything can happen on a second's notice and often does.

Now add in the fact that a handful of NASCAR Sprint Cup superstars were in a must win position or face early elimination from championship consideration and you had the makings of a very exciting race capable of generating high viewership.

The exciting drama was certainly present at the Talladega event. But, somehow, the GEICO 500 didn't generate the anticipated television ratings.

According to the numbers, released by the ESPN Network, the Talladega race produced a U.S. household rating of 2.7 which calculates to approximately 4.3 million viewers.

Unfortunately, those numbers did not eclipse the ratings from the 2013 event which generated a 3.1 rating with 4.9 million watching.

Extremely optimistic network and NASCAR officials might quickly point out that the current ratings numbers are very close to last year's figures. Unfortunately, close doesn't buy you a cigar.

It would also be very easy to point the finger at the ratings competition from the broadcasts of National Football League games which always generates solid numbers.

However, some questions must be raised: how do you explain the dip in NASCAR ratings during the months of February to August when the NFL wasn't on television?

How to you explain the fact that ESPN cancelled their racing news program, "NASCAR Now", approximately halfway through the racing season?

This is the final season of the ESPN and NASCAR broadcast agreement which the network decided not to renew.

Are you getting the impression that ESPN can't wait until next month's final race of the season?