Has NASCAR awoken?

So NASCAR has suddenly become concerned about their television ratings! See the following article in "Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal":

http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/62420

The comments made in the article are quite strange:

- It claims Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s lack of success is complicit in the ratings decline. Huh? True race fans are not going to stop watching if one of their favorites is not running well.

- The article says that the horrendous Carl Edwards crash at Talladega was thought (hoped?) to increase interest (ratings). See my April 27 blog entry. Does NASCAR, in fact, really want a blood sport?

- NASCAR official Paul Brooks is quoted in the article comparing NASCAR ratings to those of other sports on the same weekend. That is apples to oranges.

What the article does not address is that the rating decline is a continuation of a decline begun a couple of years ago. NASCAR’s television ratings declined significantly from 2007 to 2008 too. It is just getting worse. The comments made in this article are like whistling in the dark. There is a problem – please address it meaningfully!

My March 30 blog entry addressed some areas that need to be looked at. I want to add another idea concerning the networks’ presentations. Prior to 2001 many more networks were involved in bringing us the races. The same network did not do the telecast week after week until its part of the schedule ended. We may have watched the race on ESPN one week, TNT the next, then TBS, and so on. The point is: we did not have to endure the exact same on-air personalities week after week. I constantly hear from my racing friends of how tired they are of one announcer or another. It would be much nicer if the old jumbled schedule was still how it was done.