NASCAR's Marketing Masterclass: A Marketing Case Study

NASCAR is a billion-dollar racing organization that embodies the American dream of excellence, authenticity, and stewardship. After growing its television viewership by 35% this past year, NASCAR has experienced faster growth, higher engagement rates, and greater marketing strategies than its fellow competitors. But how is NASCAR reaching untapped target markets like no other, and what marketing strategies helped them champion television over the likes of the NBA, MLB, MLS, and the PGA? This marketing case study reveals NASCAR’s marketing blueprint, its successful strategies, how NASCAR is on the verge of monumental triumph since the covid pandemic.

NASCAR's Marketing Blueprint

NASCAR has grown its average television audience by 35%+ within the past year as the number of viewers went from 2.86 million to its expanded 3.85 million in 2024 (Statista). A major factor to this rising stat is NASCAR honing its ideal customer profile and target demographic. Based on viewership, attendance, and sales, this is who the ideal customer and NASCAR fan, and their interests:

- Male primarily within his 20’s, 30’s, and early 40’s (18-44)

- Average household income of $86,000+

- Most likely a parent with one or two children

- Live within southern or midwestern states

- Most likely describe themselves as “brave, courageous, and daring”

Identifying the target audience is not only a snapshot of your primary customer(s), but it also provides valuable information for how & where to advertise, what products to sell, and how to address your target audience. With NASCAR’s target audience residing within the millennial and gen-z range, it should be no surprise why they continually push content on platforms like Instagram & YouTube, two platforms that these generations were raised with. 

NASCAR has the largest social following within the United States for racing, and is third in world behind F1 and MotoGP (via SportsKeeda). With over 11.6 million followers across it platforms, NASCAR continues to expand its audience by prioritizing short-form video and highlights across its omni-channel strategy. Fortunately, the brand has found tremendous success doing so, with its Instagram page receiving 50,000 to 500,000+ views per post, and its YouTube skyrocketing to over 800+ million views since 2012.

Successful Marketing Strategies

With its revenue on the rise, its no surprise that NASCAR has leverage its marketing blueprint to develop incredible, converting strategies. Within its wide portfolio of marketing tactics, these are the most notable that have made the greatest contributions to NASCAR’s success.

- NASCAR’s Win-Win-Win Relation Model: The company has three main audiences: its drivers, fans, and sponsors. All three work with each other, and can either excel together or struggle together. When NASCAR’s audience increases, its sponsors perform better, which translate to higher contracts for the drivers. On the other side, when viewership and revenue is down, NASCAR’s sponsors may miss their projected KPI’s during the year, and can restrict sponsor deals to drivers on the track.

With over 407 sponsorship deals, NASCAR races are filled with companies across the race track, advertisements, apparel, and much more that go much further than it seems. Companies not only sponsor with drivers and/or NASCAR for brand awareness, but often do so to increase their revenue through independent or partnered products. Fans are more likely to purchase products from a NASCAR sponsored brand. Even more so, 46% will buy a sponsored brand, 44% will recommend a sponsored brand, and 41% will switch to a NASCAR-sponsored brand. These high-converting stats illustrate the power of brand marketing for NASCAR and its sponsors, and should be leveraged to the greatest extent. 

- Incredible Client Relations: NASCAR’s marketing team plays a pivotal role as it pertains to its client relations and driving the company forward. Like its Win-Win-Win model, client relations go beyond the sponsors, and also involve the drivers and their teams. Key clients and NASCAR sponsors include Sunoco, Goodyear, Mobil 1, Xfinity, Chevrolet, Toyota, Coca-Cola, and many others, and NASCAR’s internal team has continued to provide excellent communication and service when it matters most.

- Utilizing Untapped Markets: While NASCAR’s ideal customer is a male in his 20’s - 40’s, nearly one-third of its audience is female, which is a higher proportion of female fans than the NFL, NBA, MLB, PGA, and MLS. In addition, women make up 80% of all consumer spending in the United States (via capital one), which means that NASCAR is utilizing a market share that other organizations are not even considering - a massive advantage and reason why the company is continuing to grow.

- Going All-In On Short-Form Video: With over 25,000 posts on Instagram and 19,000 videos on YouTube, NASCAR has heavily invested into its video content (primarily short-form), and it is paying off - big time. With the average Instagram engagement rate being 0.32% for pages with over 1 million followers, NASCAR’s engagement rate is over 5.5 times (5.9) the average with 1.79% engagement rate and is much higher than other pages like F1 (0.68%) and MotoGP (0.17%).

- Leveraging Influencer Marketing: Most NASCAR drivers have a social platform of their own, which often yield more revenue for the drivers, sponsors, and NASCAR when they promote any races or promotional deals. NASCAR drivers can have a social following anywhere from a few thousand all the way up a hundreds of thousands - if not millions. The more attention its drivers attract, the more fans and new audiences want to tune into upcoming races and NASCAR events, which ultimately contribute to the brands Win-Win-Win model.

Unpacking NASCAR's Surging Growth Since the Pandemic

Like most companies during the pandemic, NASCAR experienced significant drops in revenue that left long-lasting impacts. According to Adam Stern and the Sports Business Journal, NASCAR tracks lost between $150 million to $175 million dollars due to Covid. Since then, NASCAR has more than just recovered, but is finding new success in increasing revenue and upcoming deals. NASCAR is projected to rake in 1.8 billion dollars in revenue this year (via Sportico), and is on the verge of its new deal including Fox Sports, NBC Sports, TNT, and Amazon. 

“This new (seven-year) deal will pay NASCAR $1.1 billion on average a year through 2031, about 34% higher than the $820 million deal the circuit had the past decade.”

NASCAR’s new media deal will begin in 2025, and will give the company a significant boost in revenue that can be used to reinvest in new deals, race tracks, and other ventures. 

This is, of course, in addition to NASCAR’s success within TV broadcasting. Even when ticket sales were down during Covid, NASCAR never failed to reach its audience via TV. In fact, these stats (provided by AMG Sport) further illustrate the constant success the brand has had through television:

- The #1 most-watched sport on television from February to September

- Second-most tuned-in audience on television (behind the NFL)

- Third most-watched sport in time spent viewing

- #1 sport in ad recall and likability

There is a lot going for NASCAR in present and future times. As more media outlets begin to feature races on their networks, the more NASCAR’s audience, relations, and revenues will increase, creating a Win-Win for everyone involved.

Conclusion

NASCAR is on the verge of not only becoming the most-watched sport on television, but also having the most-loyal fanbase we have ever seen. NASCAR’s marketing blueprint not only produces uber-successful results, but also reflects the company’s mission statement of being “stewards of the sport” and “building a globally diverse community of loyal fans.” NASCAR is the definition of a resilient company that is continually striving for excellence - whether in a global pandemic or not. As the company looks towards the horizon of new media deals, it will be exciting to see how NASCAR explodes within the upcoming years - that is if you can catch them.