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The President of Nascar expects Prime Video viewers “at least as good as cable”.

  • The run of five races from Prime Video begins with the Coca-Cola 600 on May 25th
  • The Nascar executives see the streaming platform as a way to hire younger audience

The President of Nascar, Steve Phelps, is of the opinion that the upcoming races of the Cup series on the Prime video will pull comparable number of spectators for cables.

This is the first time that the Cup series races will be available exclusively via a streaming platform that makes this unknown area for the championship. However, Phelps told the Sports Business Journal (SBJ) that his “expectation is to promote the audience, which is probably at least as good as what we would see on cable”.

The race last weekend at Phoenix had an average of 2.82 million viewers in the FS1 and was the most watched Cup series race in 2021. During the 2024 season, the championship achieved an average of 2.41 million viewers during seven races on FS1.

This sets the benchmark for how Phelps expects the series, whereby the run of five races from Prime Video on May 25th begins with the Coca-Cola 600, which traditionally draws a good number of spectators at a time when Nascar was susceptible to a lull in the industrial season.

As part of the new media law contract, which triggered the weekend campaign between channels, Prime Video broadcast selected practical and qualification meetings, but no information about the audience for these meetings was published.

SBJ reports that Nascar's managers believe that a significant part of the fan base are present Prime subscribers, but it remains to be seen whether this leads to consistent viewers – especially since this will be a new border for fans and nascar itself.

“Streaming is important,” said Phelps. “It is here to stay and we think that Amazon Prime is a great partner with whom we can be together, and they are somehow defined by the company that keeps them, right? The NFL, NBA, itself – this is a good adjacetic for us. ”

“I think you will bring a new approach that you have certainly done on Thursday evening -football, and I think it will be a somewhat younger audience for us, which is also not a bad thing.

“Find Nascar fans where the distribution is and goes there, and so I don't know the exact percentage from today, but the number is significant in terms of the percentage of our racing fans, which are members of Amazon Prime. I expect.


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For the context, the NFL football games on Thursday evening in the first-class video in 2024 were an average of 13.2 million viewers compared to 11.86 million in the previous year, which corresponds to an increase of 11 percent compared to the previous year (Yoy).

While Nascar does not match these results, this is promoted by the performance of Prime Video as the audience from the transition of linear to streaming.

In order to apply the beginning of this new partnership, Prime Video will start the sponsor Chase Elliotts Hendrick Motorsports car in three races with Talladega on April 27.

Prime video can also approach the live broadcast in a different way than conventional linear networks because it is not the same pressure to complete the event. Alex Strand, Senior Coordinating Producer for Prime Video, told SBJ that the platform is “uniquely positioned” the platform in order to have an extended post office show.

Brian Herbst, Executive Vice President of NASCAR and Chief Media and Revenue Officer, added that the races for Prime video with Nielsen were evaluated and the importance of the diversification of the Nascar audience emphasized through this New Deal.

“What you get from a streaming partner is advertising for your sport on large, exaggerated platforms that do justice to a younger audience,” he said. “To be honest, it is a way to speak to an audience that is a little less familiar with Nascar.

“We have long been an anchor properties for cable and linear TV.

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