NASCAR fans have a love/hate relationship with race-interrupting commercials – they hate the ads, but love to complain about them.
ESPN’s NASCAR NonStop: Do Your Part To Make It Successful
And can you blame them? The action in almost every other professional sport is shown live, with the only breaks coming during timeouts. With no natural places to stop the action in NASCAR, though, commercial breaks happen right in the middle of the race – and often cause fans to miss an important moment.
Fortunately, ESPN has made a viewer-friendly move. In the second half of every Chase race (starting this weekend), ESPN will use an IndyCar-style side-by-side format called “NASCAR NonStop.”
It’s going to be awesome for fans who can’t stand the thought of missing race action while commercials continuously hog the screen.
But whether it’s successful or even expanded depends in part by how much the ratings increase – if they do at all.
“Obviously we’ll be looking at the ratings and the specifics around the time spent viewing during those times, when we’re in the NonStop portion of our broadcast compared to how we’ve done in years past,” ESPN exec Julie Sobieski said.
You hear that? Not only will NonStop’s future be determined by the willingness of advertisers to give up a share of the screen while the race is on, but ESPN will be closely watching the ratings to see whether the side-by-side format has any impact on fans.
“Eventually, we’d love to be doing more of this – certainly not less,” Sobieski said.
Ideally, the NonStop program would expand into every race – not just the Chase races – and include the entire event – not just the second half.
But that won’t happen unless ESPN sees a good return on its gamble through ratings and increased advertiser interest.
“At the end of the year and probably all along the way, we’ll be looking at all of those different factors and in the end we’ll make a decision for next year how we’ll proceed,” Sobieski said.
Here are three things you can do to help your fellow fans see fewer full commercial breaks in the future:
• Tweet and e-mail ESPN and tell them how much you appreciate the NASCAR NonStop coverage;
• Contact the advertisers who are participating in the NonStop program and tell them you’re grateful for their willingness to give up part of the screen for race fans;
• If you’re a Nielsen family, watch the second half of every race! You’ll be helping all of us if you do.
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