This is the Stattmann Baby!!  Time to Scatt a little bit.

I’ve said before “there’s lies, damned lies and statistics.”

Early in the NASCAR season, television broadcast statistics are down in eleven of the first 13 events.

The two increases came at Daytona in February and Martinsville race in April.  To be fair, last year Martinsville was on against the Masters so the numbers were down a bit.  That wasn’t a problem this year so the numbers were up.

And two of the events, in Atlanta and Talladega, were rain delays moved to the FX cable network on Monday.

So that explains four of the 13.  The other nine were down, a couple even down from the year before.

What’s all this mean?  Many suggest NASCAR saturation.  That’s possible.  It’s blown up very big over the last five years.

Another way of saying it is this:  everyone who cares already knows. In fact, NASCAR may be responding to this when it places so much emphasis on its diversity program.  It’s looking for new audiences.

After Daytona, overnight TV ratings showed nine of the top ten markets were from the South, NASCAR’s traditional base.  If it’s going to diversify, NASCAR must overcome that issue and that just won’t go away.

Peace.