NASCAR TV executive explains why later start times are unlikely to change

Rain forced a majority of the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday to be completed on Monday.

The race started at 2:30 and reignited the debate about the old 1:00 p.m. start times due to the number of races that have been rained out the past several seasons that could have reached an official distance if it had just started sooner.

Brian Herbst, NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Broadcasting & Innovation, spoke to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch to explain why the league is sticking with the late afternoon start times.

“I’d say it’s a balancing act, like almost everything that we do here,” Herbst said. “…If you look at it purely from a data perspective, you’re averaging 3 million viewers per event. That 10 percent from 3:00 pm to 1:00 pm is about 300,000 viewers, just broadly speaking.”

Effectively, the risk of rain occasionally raining out races to Monday is worth it to NASCAR due to the audience increase in starting after 3 p.m. more often than not.

Lewis cited the annual Cup Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which gained around 500,000 viewers after it moved from 1 p.m. to 2:30 in 2022.

“If the overarching goal is to drive fan interest in the sport and make sure there’s as many people that are paying attention to your sport as possible, trying to get those 300,000 extra viewers on a typical Sunday is important,” Herbst added.

Amazon Prime and Turner Sports will join FOX and NBC next season and Herbst suggested the status quo will remain in place because those networks want that difference of 300,000 watching the races.

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