NASCAR Ratings: Getting There Without Cleetus Every Week

NASCAR ratings have improved, but the real question is whether that momentum can continue without Cleetus McFarland appearing regularly. Carson Hocevar and other drivers may help, but NASCAR still faces a challenge finding the kind of personality that attracts new viewers and keeps them coming back.

NASCAR television ratings are up. That, in and of itself, is great news for motorsports in general. Some chunk of those ratings are Cleetus-dependent and already dropped this last weekend as neither Garrett Mitchell (Cleetus) nor George Siciliano (Squirrel McNutt) were there. Also, they are not scheduled for any more NASCAR sanctioned races this season. Both Cleetus and Squirrel will be racing in some Freedom Factory events and other Cleetus and Cars events not at the Freedom Factory, but nothing is scheduled for NASCAR in the remainder of 2026.

Cleetus still has three races left on his $1 contract with RCR and will likely be on superspeedways (Cleetus’ favorite tracks) like Talladega, Daytona and either Indianapolis, Pocono or possibly Michigan. Those will absolutely be big ratings days for NASCAR on TV and Streaming. But what will happen to the rest of the races this season and next without Cleetus? While some of the people who Cleetus brought in will watch some more races this year, the vast majority of those bringers will cycle back to watching drag racing and the basic shenanigans being carried on Cleetus McFarland and Cleetus McFarland2 on YouTube or his paid service FRDM+. And if that weren’t a bad enough portend, a number of Cleetus folks in his primary and secondary circles also have new and growing content-laden YouTube channels of their own to draw eyes away from TV and NASCAR.

And while both Cleetus and Squirrel McNutt have opined that they are up for a full ARCA schedule next year, and Cleetus still has those three races with RCR and somebody could always offer him a one-off ride at any time, schedules permitting, all of this will be next NASCAR season.

So what about the ratings now?

Let’s start with the good news.

Carson Hocevar, a very popular driver with younger audiences, is set to keep up his schedules in the Craftsman, O’Reilly and Cup series. Ratings without Cleetus but with Carson were better than ratings before Cleetus. But without Cleetus, it’s not enough to bring up the revenue of NASCAR. They’ve already gotten their FOX FS1 money and while they will still be on most of the time, the World Cup (soccer) is pre-empting other sports coverage including NASCAR… so for a few weeks, NASCAR will experience declining ratings again. After the World Cup and without Cleetus and only Hocevar to buoy them, will the ratings come back?

F1 isn’t helping themselves either. After having put all of their races and practices on Apple, their ratings are abysmal. Some people don’t get Apple or Apple+. Some, like me, refuse to give any money to Apple for reasons that I won’t go into here. But F1 was easy to watch last year and now that it is more difficult and comes with a price tag, viewers are opting out.

Drag racing ratings are ticking up a bit but this is likely the Cleetus effect as well. Not because he appears on these televised events but because he has educated his viewers in the ways of the dragster. And, you can watch NHRA events on normal TV without paying.

Is Hocevar enough to keep NASCAR floating? Ryan Blaney seems to be pretty popular. But NASCAR is woefully short on the kinds of magnetic personalities necessary to keep people coming back if Cleet and Squirrel aren’t there. Carson can only do so much. He’s a nice guy and I like him but he’s also not Cleetus… he’s a friend of Cleetus and that helps but TV needs a face and a person to focus on and he needs to be warm, open and friendly. That’s not really Carson’s bag. He’s getting there. He’s got friendly and open and he’s working on warm.

Denny Hamlin, at age 33, is not a fully old school driver but also not one of the new up and comers. He’s now won three in a row in the Cup Series. The bad news is that all that those wins generated were conspiracy theories about “the fix” being in and that somehow Toyota or Spire (the racing team) were cheating. But they didn’t create much in the way of ratings.

Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace are considered by the internet to be ratings getters but both are also problematic for one thing or another. Maybe they generate ratings but they also cultivate an atmosphere that NASCAR would like to lean away from… the pissy, squabbling racers who think anything somebody else does is illegal, immoral and personal. Most of that type of thing doesn’t matter to me as long as they generate ratings, but there is no evidence that they do. They were both present prior to Cleetus… when the rating sucked ass and their antics didn’t draw new eyeballs.

Then of course, there’s Kyle Busch. They wrung just about as much ratings as they could out of Kyle after he died with that weeks-long tribute and celebration of his life that overlooked every bit of his own trouble-making over the years. He was around when ratings were better but he was also there when they sank.

Most of this isn’t about racers or their squabbily ways. The uptick was about Cleetus and Cleetus is about being grateful. Cleetus is about being happy just to have a ride. Cleetus can and has found a reason to be ecstatic for the smallest of victories and completely willing to accept his faults and his responsibilities to the other drivers and has shown that time after time. He’s positive and welcoming and fun to be around and fun to watch. NASCAR would do well to emulate that and I think they actually have, or at least FOX FS1 has. Their coverage of races with and without Cleetus has become more open and generous in tone and Dale Jr. has been openly playful with other drivers, encouraging them to be a little less severe and a little more fun.

Cleetus is a breath of fresh air and a beacon to point the way to greater ratings. Ratings, after all is said and done, are what drives this machine. If ratings are up, commercials cost more and the race organization makes more money. If Cleetus is the future, get him signed to more races. If open and happy is the way to get people to watch, well then encourage the drivers to be more fun and less prickly. And for god’s sake put more cameras in more cars and lets have some fun out there.

Originally published at http://tmotr.wordpress.com on June 17, 2026.