Fans Not Impressed By The Surge of New Fanbase Bred By NASCAR: Full Speed

Netflix threw “NASCAR: Full Speed” into the mix, a fresh sports docuseries from their stable, just a fortnight before the Daytona 500, aiming to rev up NASCAR’s fanbase, something that F1 did with ‘Drive to Survive’. The NASCAR series peeled back the curtain on the lives of NASCAR drivers, giving fans a peek into drivers’ personal stories previously untold. And well, it looks like they hit the nail on the head with their goal. But it turns out the long-time NASCAR fans aren’t too thrilled about the newcomers joining the bandwagon.

The new NASCAR fans aren’t as much aware of the sport?

The launch of the docuseries was a triple play of marketing, media savvy, and a fresh coat of paint for NASCAR’s image. Just last year, the powers that be at NASCAR inked streaming deals worth a cool $7.7 billion, doubling down on their mission to mix up their fanbase that they’ve been on for a good while now.

Adjusting to the seismic shift from scheduled TV to the Wild West of streaming and a splintered media scene has been a tough nut to crack for many sports. And NASCAR, once a staple in the golden age of TV, seemed to be missing a step in today’s binge-watch culture.

Flashback to the mid-2000s, NASCAR was so in the mainstream it even played backdrop to Will Ferrell’s laugh riot, “Talladega Nights.” Fast forward to now, and the sport’s catching eyes left and right, pulling in new fans, including some from the F1 crowd, who found it a smooth lane change to get into NASCAR. But here’s the rub: the old guard of NASCAR fans find the newbie enthusiasm a bit hard to swallow. Case in point, a new fan dropped a comment on Jeff Gluck’s post, tipping their hat to the sport after getting hooked by the Netflix series.

The post read, “This was the first race I watched after I watched after becoming interested following the Netflix show and overall it was an enjoyable time. This was a great article and the latest episode of the takedown cleared up my confusion on the ending so thanks for that! This race was definitely good enough to keep me watching and so now we’ll have to see how long that lasts. It’s going to have to be high quality racing for me to be able to put up with how little I relate to the culture surrounding the sport so let’s hope they keep it up!”

As soon as Jeff Gluck shared that comment on Twitter, the hardcore NASCAR fanbase swooped in with their two cents.

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The old fans are skeptical about the new fandom

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Comments from the old-time fans ranged from “We don’t need fans like him he seem unbearable IRL” to “I enjoy new fans but not ones like this.

Someone also mocked by writing, “going to have to be higb quality racing.. ‘the culture.’ the culture of cars going around in a circle? and I hope he realizes every race isn’t Daytona and will not be anything like Daytona.”

One fan chimed in about NASCAR’s recent move to slot Atlanta as the second race, hinting it was a play to dazzle the fresh faces, “That’s the whole point of putting Atlanta up front.”

Others couldn’t resist a jab at the newcomer’s expectations, with remarks like “Wait till this fan watches a short track race or road course. The non nascar fan is going to always like super speedway racing. That’s the best product they put out” and “Hopefully, they know every race won’t be like Daytona.”

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And then there was the prophet of doom. “This guy will be done 4 races in, nascar will bend over backwards for him, but continue to move away from 30 year fans like me and my children. Great marketing -_-.”

While the skepticism is justified to some level, getting new fans could hardly be a bad thing for NASCAR. And what NASCAR: Full Speed has done could very well be the start of something great.