Another Sunday.
Another opportunity for NASCAR to take additional steps forward in a nation without live sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amid the multitude of replayed Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournament classics, NASCAR has unveiled a cutting-edge televised hit with its eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series. Instead of the circuit's top drivers being behind the wheel of their sponsored automobiles, they are instead competing behind the wheel of their at-home consoles - and racing fans are loving it.
"Quite frankly, I'm blown away," said Steve Myers, the iRacing executive vice president and executive producer. "Obviously you don't want to have a pandemic to be the reason why you're getting elevated to a new level and the spotlight put on you, but the fact we were prepared and put all the work in over 16 years to be able to do this - we were quite proud of that. In a matter of seven to 10 days, we went from saying 'Hello' to a Fox producer for the first time to having a live TV show.
"The teams and drivers are looking at this as a way to keep their sponsors happy. It's all been incredible."
Contributed photo / Steve Myers, iRacing executive vice president and executive producer, said he has been "blown away" by the ratings success of NASCAR virtual races shown by Fox Sports.NASCAR virtual racing has been around for more than a decade but made its televised debut March 22, when Denny Hamlin won the Homestead-Miami Speedway race as 903,000 watched on Fox Sports One. Hamlin earned NASCAR's top prize on the track in February by winning his third Daytona 500 title in five years.
Last Sunday's iRacing event was at a virtual Texas Motor Speedway, with Timmy Hill winning before 1.34 million viewers on Fox.
The past two weekends have resulted in consecutive records for the most-watched eSports events in United States television history.
Sunday afternoon's third installment in what will be a 20-race series takes place at a virtual Bristol Motor Speedway, and it will be televised at 1 by FS1. Should the viewership continue to rise, Sunday's virtual event could surpass an actual NASCAR race from 2019, such as last June's Michigan International Speedway clash on FS1 that had 1.58 million viewers.
"I don't think that's a stretch that it happens some time soon," Myers said. "Less than 50% of Fox affiliates actually picked up last week's race, because other affiliates had previous commitments, and two of those markets were Dallas and Charlotte. We're going to easily push that number up to 2 million once we get more of those Fox affiliates on board.
"I'm not going to compare apples and oranges with these numbers, because we have no competition at the moment, but if you want to watch something live on TV right now, we're about the only thing."
Sunday's iRacing event will have a $300,000 prize for the winner and also has gambling, with ESPN's David Purdum reporting Friday night that the Nevada Gaming Control has given its state the green light to offer betting on the virtual Bristol race.
When the NBA suspended its season March 11 and college basketball conference tournaments were canceled the following day, Myers called Dale Earnhardt Jr., who said Jeff Gordon had just reached out to him about the possibility of preparing iRacing for launch. NASCAR postponed its Atlanta Motor Speedway race on March 13, and Myers received a message that Fox Sports was interested in talking.
"Then it was a matter of getting the two broadcast rooms talking together," said Myers, who was a guest this past week of "Press Row" on Chattanooga's ESPN 105.1 FM. "About 90% of what you're seeing on TV is coming out of our broadcast room."
AP file photo by Michael Conroy / IndyCar driver Tony Kanaan uses a racing simulator at his home in Indianapolis to practice for a virtual race.NASCAR has suffered from declining ratings in recent years but has taken the lead on the virtual front. The suspended NBA joined in Friday night with the start of its 2K20 virtual tournament, which contains 16 players and includes premier floor talents such as Kevin Durant and Trae Young, and IndyCar and Formula One virtual races are also being televised.
Whether iRacing has a televised home when the races return has yet to be determined, with Myers choosing to live by the week.
"It's been a bit surreal, and this may not set in until it's all over," Myers said. "The fact I'm exchanging messages with Jeff Gordon on how he's going to call an iRace on TV doesn't seem real. I'm trying to tell my wife some of these stories, and I don't even know if I believe what I'm saying. We didn't fully appreciate the number of people who don't know what iRacing is or don't care about video games but have let us know how thankful they are of us doing this.
"They are thanking us for providing them a couple of hours of normalcy and some happiness during these trying times, and that's the thing that is driving us and motivating us to continue to work so hard on this. I don't think we've even scratched the surface of what we're going to be able to do."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.