Study: Carl Edwards may be only NASCAR driver to attract new, marginal and former fans to sport - MotorSportsTalk

Carl Edwards, NASCAR driver … NASCAR savior?

According to a story in BusinessWeek.com, a recent study by analyst Andrew Maness, who runs the Racingnomics.com web site, suggests that Edwards is the only driver in the Sprint Cup Series who may be able to increase TV ratings by attracting new fans and former fans, as well as make today’s marginal fans more actively involved as regular race viewers.

The study made it clear that:

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who has been voted Most Popular Driver by fans the last 10 years, won’t do it.

Nor will six-time and defending Sprint Cup champ Jimmie Johnson.

And not four-time champ Jeff Gordon, three-time champ Tony Stewart … or even Danica Patrick.

Here’s how Maness did his study, according to BusinessWeek.com.

Maness tracked a series of performance variables across all the top active drivers going back to 1995. After accounting for other factors that might influence television ratings (a race’s start time, TV competition on race day), he correlated the success of individual drivers to audience size to determine which drivers have had an impact on bringing in the marginal fans. One driver clearly emerges from the data: Carl Edwards.

Edwards is the only driver in the study who improved audience size in a significant manner. His week-to-week success increases television ratings by 3.6 percent. No other driver’s success carries a positive relationship across all five models (measuring different components around winning races, leading many laps, overall points standings, etc.). … Edwards is the only driver with a statistical confidence interval above zero.”

Translated, Edwards is the only driver in the study that moved the needle – known as “success impacts ratings positively.”

Drivers whose “success has negligible impact on TV ratings” include Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle, Tony Stewart, Brad Keselowski, Jamie McMurray, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne and Clint Bowyer.

According to the study, there are only two drivers whose “success negatively impacts ratings,” Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin, who had the worst showing of all drivers in the study.

Interestingly, Danica Patrick is not in the study.

Maness cited Edwards’ popularity, particularly his crossover appeal. Not only does he do well in TV commercials in NASCAR races, those same commercials also receive positive feedback from viewers when they’re played during other sporting event telecasts such as the NFL.

Plus, his trademark back-flip after winning a race strikes a positive chord in NASCAR fans, even if they aren’t Edwards fans. Also, Edwards’ Midwest roots (he’s from Columbia, Mo.), are in his favor, the study said.

“He brings a sensibility about NASCAR that’s a lot less Ricky Bobby (the main character in the NASCAR spoof, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) and a lot more universal, charming, and polished,” the study said.

And NASCAR’s three strongest seasons in terms of positive ratings movement – 2005, 2008 and 2011 – are also the same years Edwards enjoyed his best seasons, including just barely losing the championship to Stewart by a tiebreaker in 2011.

To quote once again from the study:

Edwards is now in a contract year. He’ll be a free agent when the season is over and will have the option to go to any team he chooses. NASCAR should want him to get into the fastest car possible. … All else being equal, the numbers suggest Edwards is the single most important driver in keeping NASCAR’s ratings afloat.”

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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