How Prime is raising the bar for NASCAR coverage

For the first time in the history of the NASCAR Cup Series, a race was featured exclusively on streaming. The numbers are in and they are solid for the first outing. The Coca-Cola 600 peaked a 2.92 million viewers with over one million watching the extended post-race show, but most importantly, the average median age of viewers went down by seven years.

As NASCAR chases a younger demographic, this alone makes it a huge win. There were around 800,000 viewers from the 18-49 demographic, which is more than any race on cable for the last three years (at least). And while the total viewership is down from the 600 on FOX, which is to be expected, it still beat six of the eight Cup races this year that were aired on FOX Sports 1. 

But what made Prime Video a real winner on Sunday night was how they approached the event. The booth was energetic and informative, and they took the event seriously (aside from the puppet segment). You felt the gravity of it, which FOX managed to do quite well for the Indy 500, but it’s something that has been missing from a lot of their NASCAR events. The commercials were minimally invasive and side-by-side was used constantly. Even with William Byron dominating 283 of 400 laps, the middle portions of the race never felt boring as Prime went around the track to find the action. Stunningly, the final stage went without a single commercial interrupting the final two runs of the event — about 64 consecutive laps. 

The addition of personalities like Carl Edwards and Corey LaJoie was a great move while the booth unsurprisingly nailed it between Adam Alexander, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte. And the way they explained things without patronizing the viewer was refreshing as well. They weren’t explaining what stages were or how caution flags at the end of the race work, but they did throw together a highly informative 30-second segment on the fly to explain why Denny Hamlin’s team failed to get their car full of fuel.

The never-ending post-race show

Carl Edwards and Corey LaJoie

Photo by: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

But the post-race show was the biggest breath of fresh air. On cable, NASCAR fans are used to not getting much of a post-race show due to the constraints of that medium. FOX and NBC have their hands somewhat tied in that regard, but Prime took full advantage of that, giving viewers one hour and 18 minutes of post-race coverage where they brought in race winner Ross Chastain and runner-up finisher Byron for full sit-down discussions. Team owner Justin Marks also joined the panel to discuss the big win for Trackhouse. They even interviewed crew chief Phil Surgen in Victory Lane and were sure to tell the whole story of Chastain’s remarkable comeback, fighting from last to first in a backup car to win NASCAR’s longest race.

Speaking on his weekly podcast, Earnhardt Jr. said of the post-race show: “The other luxury of streaming is that the post-race is fluid. If we feel like we’ve got everything done, and everything we can possibly share in 30 minutes, that’s when it’ll end. if it needs to go longer, it’ll go longer. we don’t have an out … And if there was ever so much going on that we need to be on for an hour and a half, they will. That’s the great thing about the post-race.”

Prime purchased a total of five races this year and for fans not willing to open up their wallets just yet for streaming, they could still opt in for a 30-day free trial that covers the entire run on Prime. Around these events, Prime is doing a ton of activation between commercials and highly-acclaimed documentaries like the new ‘Earnhardt’ docuseries, which quickly became the No. 1 trending series on Prime. 

It showed that change is sometimes needed to shake up the status quo, and that’s not a knock on FOX. Just look at IndyCar moving from NBC to FOX and everything FOX has done for the series. Just handing someone else the same ball will result in an entirely different ballgame. So congrats to Prime, who took the expectations for a NASCAR broadcast and hit that ball right out of the park.