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The National Hot Rod Association is experiencing significant increases in every metric that matters-and doing so at a time that many sports, especially motorsports, are struggling to hold onto fans.
And with one of its biggest annual events-the U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway-just around the corner, many drag racing sponsors and supporters are screaming, "Go, go, go!"
"The NHRA has really bucked the motorsports trend in a big way," said Dave Moroknek, president and owner of MainGate Inc., a locally based manufacturer and seller of licensed products in sports and other sectors. "They're on a great trajectory."
Year-over-year NHRA merchandise sales are up "a strong double-digit percentage," said Moroknek, whose company handles merchandise sales for the series. And e-commerce sales are up 25 percent.
Overall attendance at the series' 16 races so far this season is up 10 percent, according to the NHRA. TV ratings are up 9 percent, with ratings for Sunday elimination broadcasts up 16 percent, according to New York-based Nielsen Media Research. And social media following is up 70 percent, according to the series.
"They've put all the pieces in the right place to build a foundation for growth," Moroknek said.
That foundation got a big boost two years ago when the NHRA left ESPN in the dust in favor of a multiyear deal with Fox and its cable TV affiliates.
Leaving ESPN-known widely as the Worldwide Leader in Sports-was not a universally popular decision. Some fans and even sponsors wondered about the wisdom of moving some races to the relatively new Fox cattle channels FS1 and FS2. The switch also meant a change in on-air talent, which wasn't widely embraced-at least initially.
"That move turned out to be pure genius," said Tim Frost, a Chicago-based motorsports business consultant and publisher of National Speedway Directory.
Fox "took over more control of the broadcast, brought some things in-house, improved the production, and in the process got a lot more air time not just for races, but for lifestyle programming and features on drivers, team owners and crew members," Frost said. "It's brought a lot of new eyeballs to the series."
More than 1.6 million people watched the NHRA's race in Englishtown, New Jersey, on June 11, making it the mostwatched single-day telecast...