NASCAR Revs Up Digital Efforts With No Fans In The Stands

NASCAR is well into its newest phase of reaching a wider audience than ever before. From streaming platforms to an enhanced mobile application, yesterday’s stock car racing is now geared up for the future.

Unfortunately, because of limits on crowds during the coronavirus pandemic, NASCAR cannot have fans in the grandstands for the foreseeable future. Essentially, that means NASCAR had to do the unthinkable and translate its resources from being one of America’s most popular spectator sports to one that is adaptable in the digital realm.

The sanctioning body modernized NASCAR at a rapid pace as it prepared to return to on-track action on May 19 for the Real Heroes 400 at Darlington Raceway. NASCAR is now able to capitalize on being one of the few sports to return to action since stay-at-home orders were put into place. Social distancing and face masks are required by those working events, and drivers have to arrive at their cars by themselves after staying in their motor home prior to each event.

While many fans might be disappointed they can’t hear the roar of the engines and smell burning rubber and gasoline, the at-home experience has significantly improved.

“The foundation had been laid over the last couple of seasons,” Tim Clark, NASCAR’s chief digital officer, said. “There has been a big investment for the entire company since we brought our rights back in-house in 2012-13 to build our digital platforms out as a fan engagement vehicle.”

Since NASCAR’s return, the NASCAR app, NASCAR.com and the NASCAR handles on various social media outlets have revved up interactions with the series’ fan base. With fresh eyes on NASCAR and little competition, the increase of second-screen options is helping people learn about the sport.

“As the race season was suspended, we quickly transitioned into a virtual racing and esports; we had the ability to strike a balance to be respectful with our tone in the grand scheme of what was happening across the world,” Clark said. “We had content that we could use to entertain and engage our fans.

“What’s interesting is we had to first transition from the real world to the virtual world. Now, we’re transitioning from the opposite way.”

But when NASCAR moved to the virtual racing world, there were some unexpected challenges with iRacing, mainly with the Kyle Larson incident. Larson was suspended by NASCAR and fired from Chip Ganassi Racing after saying the “n” word while streaming a live iRacing event. The incident made headlines across the nation, and it was certainly a major bump in the road as NASCAR prepared for its return.

NASCAR has several fresh second-screen options on its mobile app and on its website that take away previous paywalls, giving fans a free look at what they’re missing at the racetrack.

Among the items NASCAR is offering for free is its Scanner, which allows users to listen in to live audio from nearly every car in the field during the race. This has been available for quite some time, but fans previously had to pay for it.

“It’s very important for existing NASCAR fans that aren’t allowed to attend a live race,” Clark said. “But it’s also important for us from a league standpoint in terms of awareness for new fans.”

NASCAR has increased the live data that is available for fans on its platforms as well. The sport is using a special IoT-based platform to rake more data off the cars than ever before, and putting it directly into the hands of fans.

Live in-car cameras, on top of the audio, have also been added to NASCAR’s digital platforms. These enable fans at home to see actually how their favorite driver is not only performing, but what they are doing inside of the racecar.

“We had a lot of conversations when we had the realization that we were going to be one of the first sports back around what we can do that would be really different in terms of presenting the live experience,” Clark said. “A lot of it was removing barriers to entry and the other part of it was wrapping a more visual nature around it.”

The Fantasy Live feature on NASCAR.com has also been reworked to enable fantasy players to switch drivers in the middle of a race. It means those following the race can be further engaged, all while showing their knowledge of what is happening in terms of team strategy, stage racing and more.

Moving forward, NASCAR will likely allow fans at tracks whose states are beginning to allow crowds gather. While the stands likely won’t be at full capacity for quite some time, the second-screen options will become more familiar to those in attendance.

“We have some challenges that other sports don’t face in terms of the blueprint of our tracks,” Clark said. “There are definitely some challenges in terms of a connectivity standpoint. But we’ve made a lot of investments there. Any experience we have available for a fan at home is one we want to continue during an event at the racetrack.”