Denny Hamlin offers bold NASCAR media take

The constant calculation in sports is broadcast reach versus broadcast rights value. Leagues and organizations want their events to be broadcast to the most people possible, but they also want to be paid as much as possible for their broadcasting rights, and those elements are often in conflict.

That often leads to some decisions being made with an eye to optimizing broadcast rights value at the expense of in-person ticket sales and total broadcast reach. And that leads to backlash from those who think everything should be optimized either for broadcast-only TV viewers or in-person stadium attendees. Those are elements often seen in discussions about Friday night and “Big Noon” college football games, Peacock-exclusive NFL games, and more.

But a more interesting criticism there is one made with an acknowledgement that a certain desired adjustment is less ideal for TV or streaming packages, but that it might still be worth it despite that. It’s really easy for a team to say “Do this for the fans,” but it’s much harder to say that with a note that that decision will produce less TV revenue. Very few teams and owners are willing to take less broadcast money. But Denny Hamlin (who, in addition to driving full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series for Joe Gibbs Racing, is a co-owner of the 23XI Racing Team with Michael Jordan) brought that up on his latest Actions Detrimental podcast, in response to a question from co-host Jared Allen:

The particularly notable thing there from Hamlin is his opening “This is where the interest of teams and NASCAR does not align.” And that, and his follow-up discussion of sponsorship revenues (“we’re so sponsorship-based”), speaks to the unusual arrangement at play in NASCAR; it is a sport where the governing body’s interests appear to be significantly different from those of individual teams. That often shows up in a smaller way in stick-and-ball sports, but sponsorship is a bigger part of the NASCAR picture for teams, and that matters in terms of both the importance of broadcast reach and in-person attendance.

But it’s worth noting that the overall discussion here is about much more than NASCAR, and that there are good reasons for everyone from the NFL to the NBA to MLS to sign deals with streaming companies. Yes, those companies often have to pay a premium for rights versus traditional broadcast or cable TV, and that’s fair considering that they often seem to offer less reach.  (However, the reach debate may be renewed shortly as cord-cutting continues and as streaming expands.) But the NBA and NFL have both been able to strike a balance there, taking in massive revenue from the streaming-only portions of their deals while maintaining broadcast TV access (and its corresponding reach) elsewhere, and NASCAR’s new deals may yet see it do the same.

Hamlin’s comments here are still worth noting, though. For one, they’re far more honest and thorough than what we often see in these discussions. Criticisms of particular start times are often from a perspective of “That’s not ideal for me!”, or from one of “Why isn’t everything shown to the widest possible audience?” Hamlin clearly understands that NASCAR has struck the deals it has to maximize media rights revenue and that this “Give us more 1 p.m. starts on broadcast networks” idea would hurt the organization’s TV revenue. And his criticisms in light of that carry much more force than they would without that acknowledgment.

And Hamlin isn’t alone there. In particular, the recent movement by many teams across sports to put local games on over-the-air networks rather than cable regional sports networks fits with this. Phoenix Suns’ owner Mat Ishbia, an early pioneer here, similarly spoke to the ancillary benefits (ticket sales, merchandise, concessions, and more) he sees from extending the reach of his team’s games exceeding the loss of specific media rights revenue.

Thus, maybe Hamlin’s idea for NASCAR will catch on. Or maybe it won’t, and they’ll stick with the approach they currently have that’s focused on media rights revenue. But it is interesting to hear not just a driver, but a team co-owner, sound off this way, and especially to hear that with the acknowledgment that his solution is suboptimal for maximizing media rights value.

And that’s the conversation that needs to be had on all these fronts. There can be discussions of maximizing media value, and there can be discussions of maximizing fan experiences, but it should be noted that the two are often in conflict. And it’s interesting to hear Hamlin advocate for the latter while acknowledging the harm that may do to the former.

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