Apr 1, 09:06 PM
For those of you NASCAR fans that like stats and love to hate commercials, here is the breakdown from the race on Sunday afternoon. This breakdown is thoroughly unprofessional, and, hopefully, easy-to-understand.
I started recording the times as the Invocation for the race was given at 2:00 PM, and stopped at the waving of the checkered flag at 6:33 PM (all times are EST). I did not keep records for the pre- and post-race coverage.
Please note that in addition to all of the following, there is always a company logo visible in the upper right hand corner by the race ticker scrolling across the screen.
There are plans in the future for more stats from the race. Also, once we reach September, the month when we began doing these breakdowns last year, we will be able to make side-by-side comparisons.
Race and Commercial Breakdown of the Goody’s Cool Orange 500 04-01-07
Total number of commercials: 138
Total number of companies or entities advertised: 64
Total number of brief promos of products/services during the race broadcast: 38
Total number of companies or entities advertised in brief promos or crawlers: 27 (companies: Chevy, DirecTV, Nextel, Coca-Cola, Baseball on Fox, Win a Chevy Silverado, AT&T/Cingular, Toyota, NAPA, Degree for Men, McDonald’s, Allstate, TGIFridays, Auto Zone, Ford, Q Motor Oil, Warner Bros. movie ‘The Reaping’, State Farm, Dominos, UPS, FedEx, Head & Shoulders, Subway, Budweiser, DLP, Nextel, Texas Motor Speedway)
Total amount of time these brief promos take during broadcast: app. 3 min. 30 sec.
Also, there is the following race statistics during the broadcast, sponsored by companies:
FedEx ‘Letter of the Week’
FedEx ‘Race Trax’
Budweiser ‘Bud Pole Award’
AT&T/Cingular ‘Virtual Crew Chief Question’
Dominos ‘Hot Lap’
DLP ‘Race Off of Pit Road’
DLP ‘Amazing Moment’
Auto Zone ‘Biggest Mover of the Race’
NAPA ‘Race Summary’
State Farm ‘Safety Report’
Q Motor Oil ‘Race Summary’
DLP ‘Ultimate Picture Cam’
Ford ‘Bold Movers’
Allstate ‘Good Hands Driver Award’
Nextel ‘Call of the Race’
Start time to record race/commercial periods: 2:00 P.M.
End time to record race/commercial periods: 6:33 P.M.
Total minutes: 273
Minutes of race broadcast: 210
Minutes of commercials: 63
Breakdown of what the commercials were for, by category:
Fox Previews/Promos:
‘Family Guy’ – 3
‘24’ – 2
‘The Simpsons’ – 2
‘Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?’ – 2
‘Drive’ – 2
‘Prison Break’ – 2
‘Seinfeld’ – 1
‘King of the Hill’ – 1
‘American Dad’ – 1
‘The War at Home’ – 1
‘On the Lot’ – 1
‘American Idol’ – 1
Baseball on Fox – 1
Total: 20
Movies:
‘The Reaping’ – 3
‘Next’ – 2
Total: 5
Local News/Sports/Points-of-Interest in Penna.
Local news – 1
Total: 1
Restaurants/Food
Dominos (David Reutimann) – 4
TGIFridays – 4
KFC – 2
Subway (Tony Stewart) – 2
McDonald’s – 2
www.mycokerewards.com (various claymation drivers) – 2
Subway – 1
King’s Restaurants – 1
Wendy’s – 1
Pizza Hut – 1
www.mycokerewards.com – 1
Total: 21
Beer
Budweiser – 1
Budweiser (Dale Jr.) – 1
Labatt Blue Light – 1
Total: 3
Car/Truck/Bike
Chevrolet – 6
Ford – 6
Toyota – 4
NAPA (Dale Jarrett & Michael Waltrip) – 4
Enterprise (Martin Truex Jr.) – 3
Chevrolet (Tony Stewart & Dale Jr.) – 3
Auto Zone – 3
Yamaha – 2
Duralast at Auto Zone – 2
Toyota (Todd Bodine) – 2
Q Torque Motor Oil – 1
Q Torque Motor Oil (various NASCAR drivers) – 1
Ford (various Ford drivers) – 1
Enterprise Rent-a-Car – 1
Suzuki – 1
FeatherLite Trailers – 1
Sunoco (Tony Stewart) – 1
Total: 42
Insurance
Allstate (Kasey Kahne) – 2
State Farm (Jeff Burton) – 2
State Farm – 1
Total: 5
Wireless Phone
AT&T/Cingular – 4
Nextel (Elliott Sadler & Jimmie Johnson) – 2
Nextel/Sprint/Motorola – 1
Total: 7
Home Improvement
Home Depot (Tony Stewart) – 2
Kobalt Tools at Lowes (Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus) – 1
John Deere – 1
Total: 4
Technology
DLP (Tony Raines) – 4
DirecTV – 2
Sprint Broadband – 1
Total: 7
Products/Services for the Home and Personal Use
Lipitor – 1
Gillette Fusion – 1
Head & Shoulders – 1
Degree for Men – 1
www.consolenergy.com – 1
Total: 5
Shipping
Fed Ex (Denny Hamlin) – 3
UPS (Dale Jarrett, Ned Jarrett) – 2
UPS (Dale Jarrett) – 1
UPS (Dale Jarrett & Michael Waltrip) – 1
Total: 7
Racing Related
nascar.com Track Pass Race View – 5
Busch Series (Mark Martin) – 1
nascar.com local racing – 1
Nextel All-Star Challenge Race – 1
nascar.com/foundation celebrates ‘NASCAR Day’ on May 18 – 1
Michigan International Raceway (www.racetickets.com) – 1
Kansas Speedway – 1
Total: 11
Breakdown of specific times, broken into two categories (race broadcast times, and commercial broadcast times):
Race brdcast times: Total min: Comm. brdcast times: Total min:
2:00 PM – 2:03 PM – 3 // 2:03 PM – 2:05 PM – 2
2:05 PM – 2:10 PM – 5 // 2:10 PM – 2:13 PM – 3
2:13 PM – 2:18 PM – 5 // 2:18 PM – 2:21 PM – 3
2:21 PM – 2:28 PM – 7 // 2:28 PM – 2:30 PM – 2
2:30 PM – 2:34 PM – 4 // 2:34 PM – 2:37 PM – 3
2:37 PM – 2:44 PM – 7 // 2:44 PM – 2:47 PM – 3
2:47 PM – 3:01 PM – 14 // 3:01 PM – 3:04 PM – 3
3:04 PM – 3:11 PM – 7 // 3:11 PM – 3:14 PM – 3
3:14 PM – 3:19 PM – 5 // 3:19 PM – 3:22 PM – 3
3:22 PM – 3:30 PM – 8 // 3:30 PM – 3:33 PM – 3
3:33 PM – 3:40 PM – 7 // 3:40 PM – 3:44 PM – 4
3:44 PM – 3:49 PM – 5 // 3:49 PM – 3:51 PM – 2
3:51 PM – 3:59 PM – 8 // 3:59 PM – 4:01 PM – 2
4:01 PM – 4:10 PM – 9 // 4:10 PM – 4:12 PM – 2
4:12 PM – 4:19 PM – 7 // 4:19 PM – 4:22 PM – 3
4:22 PM – 4:33 PM – 11 // 4:33 PM – 4:36 PM – 3
4:36 PM – 4:48 PM – 12 // 4:48 PM – 4:50 PM – 2
4:50 PM – 5:08 PM – 18 // 5:08 PM – 5:11 PM – 3
5:11 PM – 5:18 PM – 7 // 5:18 PM – 5:19 PM – 1
5:19 PM – 5:36 PM – 17 // 5:36 PM – 5:38 PM – 2
5:38 PM – 5:44 PM – 6 // 5:44 PM – 5:47 PM – 3
5:47 PM – 5:52 PM – 5 // 5:52 PM – 5:54 PM – 2
5:54 PM – 6:11 PM – 17 // 6:11 PM – 6:14 PM – 3
6:14 PM – 6:20 PM – 6 // 6:20 PM – 6:23 PM – 3
6:23 PM – 6:33 PM – 10 // 6:33 PM – checkered flag flies
Total race brdcst time: 210 min Total comm. brdcst time: 63 min
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Ron Tucker Says:
Apr 2, 01:41 PMThanks for doing this. It is certainly interesting and You seem to be the only one concerned with the exploitation that we are subjected to.
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Marvin Krause Says:
Apr 3, 05:25 AMIt would be super if you could indicate the percent (%) of commercial minutes to total race broadcast time so I would not have to calculate it every time. Also, a running graph displayed race-to-race of this percentage would be useful to see any tends going on. Thanx.
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2fan Says:
Apr 3, 05:41 AMwhy don’t you count the restarts missed any more? I have a feeling that’s going to become a major problem when ESPN takes over.
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Lorne Says:
Apr 3, 02:58 PMWhen it comes to NASCAR and commercial minutes the time away from the action is way too long. It seems week by week the problem is getting bigger and bigger and with ESPN coming i don’t think it will get any better. When watching the Busch Series on ESPN they have to many interuptions and miss many restarts. Also ESPN will talk about one driver for the whole race which make the series that is already boring with those busch wackers even more boring.
Finally thanks CawsnJaws for every week getting this information for all to see.
THANKS, LORNE
Commercial breakdown for the Food City 500 What’s good about NASCAR?
Apr 2, 01:10 PM
glad to find you on Jayski. I’ve been keeping these same statistics and now I have something to compare with my notes.
I fell asleep around 2:04/3:04pm but began notes again at 3:03/4:03pm. Thanks for adding to my data resources.
I don’t keep up with the sponsor names & products so I appreciate your efforts in enlightening an old racing FANatic.
Our data back ups the 7 minutes of racing with 3 minute segments of 6 to 7 commercials per break. I also try to keep track of green flag & yellow flag minutes along with these ads but with TV breaks I don’t have as reliable numbers as I have when I’m at the races.
My notes indicate that the amount of minutes of commercials are usually less than the minutes of caution flag laps at the races. If the commercials were all run during cautions we wouldn’t miss any of the green flag racing.
At Bristol I had 80 minutes of yellow for 95 laps. 19% yellow laps / 81% green laps. The time of race was 196 minutes 2:29 to 5:45pm. 40% of the minutes were yellow / 60% of the minutes were green. I’ll check your BMS 03.07 data after I send this e-mail.
I haven’t had the chance to peruse your site. When I get the chance I’ll mosey on back for a look-see.
I’ve been collecting racing data since before the turn of the century and it’s intriguing for me to find others with the same passion to care about our favorite sport.
is there a FAX number to send you data that I’ve collected from my recliner as I watched races to compare with your figures.
always boring bob – founder / 1.800.243.5897 Boring Bob’s Famous Escorted Racing TOURs BoringBobsTOURs.com