Steve Phelps’ Bold Claims Sidestep NASCAR’s Decade-Long TV Ratings Slide

With the strain from battling the antitrust lawsuit brought by two teams against NASCAR showing on his face, NASCAR President Steve Phelps (pictured on left) tried to dismiss mounting concerns over sagging Cup Series TV ratings with a succinct four-word proclamation: “We’re going to grow.” NASCAR has been doing anything but for 15 years.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Speaking amid a 2025 season plagued by underwhelming numbers, Phelps framed the dips as a calculated “reset” baked into the sport’s new $7.7 billion media rights deal, which kicked off this year with a fragmented lineup of FOX, Amazon Prime Video, NBC, and Warner Bros. Discovery. But while Phelps points to distribution shifts and streaming experiments as the culprits, the data paints a starkly different picture: a relentless erosion of viewership that’s spanned over a decade, far predating the latest broadcast shuffle.

In an interview on the State of the Sport at Phoenix Raceway Friday, Phelps acknowledged a 14% season-to-date decline—precisely as forecasted—but leaned hard into optimism. “Because of the distribution changes to be less broadcast heavy and more cable heavy and streaming, we knew we were going to have a reset,” he explained. He touted stronger FOX ratings early in the year, a younger audience (by about six years) tuning into Amazon’s five-race package, and enhanced content creation to spotlight rising stars.

Even softer NBC numbers on USA Network? “Slightly softer than we thought… but in line with the projections.” Phelps capped it with unbridled confidence: “So are we concerned about where the ratings are? No. It’s exactly where we thought they’d be.”

The latest flashpoint was the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville, the penultimate playoff race, which drew just 2.35 million viewers on NBC—down from 2.5 million in 2024. It echoed a broader trend: New Hampshire’s race limped to 1.29 million on USA Network, a 31% plunge from 1.88 million last year. Playoff races, meant to spike interest, have fared worse, averaging under 2.5 million amid brutal competition from NFL Sundays pulling 25 million-plus. Yet Phelps’ narrative hinges on this being a one-year hiccup from media evolution, not a symptom of deeper woes like stagnant innovation, fan alienation, or the sport’s struggle to capture cord-cutters.

A Decline That’s Anything But New

Phelps’ excuses ring hollow when stacked against historical data. NASCAR’s Cup Series viewership has been hemorrhaging audiences since its mid-2000s peak, a slide accelerated by the 2008 recession, the Car of Tomorrow era’s backlash, and later blows like COVID-19 disruptions. Far from a 2025 anomaly, the current lows represent the latest chapter in a 15-year downturn.

To illustrate, consider the Daytona 500—the series’ marquee event and a bellwether for overall health. Drawing from comprehensive race-by-race archives, here’s how its household ratings and viewership have cratered:

The trend is undeniable: From an average of ~8.0 rating and 14.6 million viewers in the 2010-2013 heyday, Daytona has tumbled to ~3.5 rating and 6.8 million in 2025—a 56% drop in ratings and 53% in viewers. Even adjusting for population growth and multi-platform viewing, the bleed is real.

Season-long averages tell an even grimmer tale. NASCAR’s Cup Series drew 7.85 million viewers per race in 2007, dipping to 5.99 million by 2010. By 2019, it hovered around 3.2 million, per industry trackers. The pandemic shaved another million in 2020-2021, with partial rebounds stalling at 2.9 million in 2022-2024. Now, 2025’s average sits at a dismal 2.52 million through most races—down 13% from 2024’s 2.916 million—marking the lowest full-season mark in modern history. Through 23 races, it’s scraping 2.73 million, flirting with sub-3 million for the first time ever.

Sources: Aggregated from Nielsen data via Sports Media Watch, AutoRacing1, and Pro Football Network. Pre-2015 figures from Wikipedia historical summaries. Note: 2025 partial season estimate.

Shrinking Grandstands: A Stark Symbol of Attendance Erosion

If plummeting TV ratings weren’t evidence enough of NASCAR’s fanbase fatigue, the literal dismantling of grandstands across its premier venues tells an equally damning story. Since the sport’s attendance peaked in the mid-2000s—bolstered by the Jeff Gordon-Dale Earnhardt era and economic tailwinds—tracks have methodically removed hundreds of thousands of seats to mask chronic underutilization. Officials couch these moves as “right-sizing” for modern hospitality or premium experiences, but the math is simple: Fewer seats mean fewer empty ones on camera, propping up the illusion of sellouts amid a demand drought that’s mirrored the TV slide.

The International Speedway Corporation (now part of NASCAR-owned properties) alone slashed capacity from a 2007 high of 1.1 million seats across its portfolio to under 800,000 by 2019. Speedway Motorsports Inc. followed suit, trimming 101,000 seats (12% of total) from seven tracks since 2009. By 2025, the cumulative toll exceeds 300,000 seats razed or repurposed—equivalent to erasing the populations of entire mid-sized cities from the spectator equation. These aren’t isolated fixes; they’re a track-by-track reckoning with a fan exodus accelerated by rising ticket prices, repetitive formats, and competition from bingeable entertainment.

Here’s a snapshot of the most significant removals:

This downsizing spree, which began in earnest post-2008 financial crisis, has only intensified. Tracks like Bristol and Kansas have flirted with removals but held steady—Bristol’s concrete coliseum still boasts near-capacity crowds for night races, while Watkins Glen uniquely added seats in 2012.

Yet for most, the pattern is clear: Build for booms, then bulldoze for busts. As one track executive admitted in 2015, it’s about “landing where that will work in the future”—a euphemism for conceding the party’s over. Just as Phelps downplays ratings as a “reset,” these empty expanses underscore a product adrift, where fewer fans mean less revenue, forcing venues to pivot to RV pads and suites that few can afford.

Beyond the Excuses: What’s Really Stalling NASCAR?

Phelps’ pivot to “planned resets” and streaming upside glosses over structural cracks. The new deal’s fragmentation—spreading races across four partners, including ad-free Amazon streams—hasn’t stemmed the tide; it’s exacerbated it, with cable slots on USA Network tanking harder than anticipated. Younger viewers on Prime? Sure, but they’re a fraction of the lost boomer base, and social clips (85 million views via Bleacher Report) don’t fill broadcast coffers.

Yet the most vocal backlash isn’t just about where fans watch—it’s about what they’re watching. Online forums, Reddit threads, and analyst breakdowns reveal a groundswell of frustration with the on-track product itself, painting 2025 as a nadir for racing quality.

Fans decry the Next Gen car’s persistent issues: underpowered engines that stifle passing, especially on short tracks and road courses, leading to parade-like processions rather than wheel-to-wheel battles.

Stage racing, once hailed for injecting drama, now feels gimmicky and manipulative, prioritizing mid-race points over natural flow and often rewarding fuel-mileage chess matches over raw speed.

A Reddit teardown captured the mood bluntly: “This may be the most sour [fans have] ever [been] towards NASCAR’s product,” with users venting about predictable outcomes, lackluster finishes, and a sense that the charter system has turned Cup into a corporate points grind rather than edge-of-your-seat spectacle.

Jeff Gluck’s 2025 fan sentiment analysis echoes this rollercoaster of disillusionment, from playoff hype to Darlington letdowns, while YouTube rants like “Being a NASCAR Fan in 2025 is FRUSTRATING” rack up views lamenting missed on-track action drowned out by booth banter and commercials. NASCAR’s response—a 2026 horsepower bump for non-superspeedways—nods to these gripes but feels like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, arriving three years after the Next Gen debut amplified the complaints.

Critics in the garage and fan forums argue deeper fixes are needed: Revamp the car for closer racing, diversify schedules beyond ovals, and invest in digital-native storytelling to lure Gen Z beyond TikTok highlights. As one insider put it, the “brutal truth” is that NASCAR’s product hasn’t evolved fast enough for a splintered media landscape—or for fans craving the unscripted chaos that once defined stock car racing.

Phelps eyes a “bounce back” at Phoenix, but history suggests optimism alone won’t reverse course. If “Heim Time” in the Trucks can dominate with raw talent, the Cup Series must confront its ratings reality—not excuse it away. Otherwise, that $7.7 billion deal risks becoming a gilded anchor dragging NASCAR further from relevance.