NASCAR Nearly Spent $5,000,000 Trying to Keep Up With Formula 1 and Captivate Newer Audience

With declining TV viewership posing a major threat to NASCAR for a while now, the stock car organization decided to go the Formula One way and create a docu-series called NASCAR: Full Speed. And despite it costing them $5 million, as far as the organizers are concerned, it was money well spent. According to popular opinion, the series not only captivated the core audience of the sport but also drew in motorsports enthusiasts from around the world who did not have much of an interest in stock car racing.

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The first season of the series had 5 episodes, all about the playoffs stage of the race, The production was widely appreciated by fans and some believed that it even surpassed Drive to Survive in certain aspects. NASCAR and Netflix will surely make a second season after the success of the first, this time hopefully with more episodes and more of the regular season action.

NASCAR set to pour more money into successful Netflix project

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The production cost of NASCAR: Full Speed was recently revealed in an article in Sports Business Journal by veteran journalist Adam Stern. The report stated that sources close to Netflix NASCAR Holdings divulged the information and believe that the organizers will be spending a lot more in the future to make the series even better so that they can attract new fans of motorsports.

“@NASCAR spent over $5 million to pull off the @Netflix ‘Full Speed ‘docu-series, per source, the latest indication that the racing company is opening its pocketbook to try to grow the sport,” Stern wrote on his official X handle as he shared the article.

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Several things worked for viewers, both young and old. Perhaps the biggest draw was the deep dive into the drivers’ personal lives, especially the likes of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson, who are quite popular in the circuit. It will be interesting to see the approach Netflix takes for the future seasons of the show and hopefully, its quality won’t drop off like it did with Drive to Survive after the first few seasons.

On the other hand, $5 million sounds like a lot of money but considering the level of production and how good the shows aesthetic turned out to be, fans believe that the makers did a fantastic job in cutting costs. The reaction is truly a testament to the fantastic work everyone involved with the series has done.

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Fans hail NASCAR: Full Speed production quality with $5 million budget

Taking to Reddit, several fans spoke about the top-notch production level and some were surprised that they pulled it off with a budget of $5 million. “That’s… really low considering the production quality. They must’ve cut some kind of deal with Netflix so they could handle the upfront costs,” one user commented.

“$5M doesn’t seem unreasonable for a 5 episode series that has quality production. It actually seems a little low,” quipped another.

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Another fan was amazed at the low budget and with talks of NASCAR and Netflix putting more resources into the upcoming seasons, they hoped for more episodes. “Considering how much they spent on the Coliseum and the street race, $5 mil for a Netflix special was a steal. Maybe they’ll get a full 8 episodes next year,” they wrote.

The show’s success was well represented in the comments section as one of the users admitted to becoming a stock car racing fan because of the series, which was exactly its objective. “Made me a fan! First year and it’s been great,” they commented.

Another fan believes that the show’s success would get the TV ratings up and that would have been the case in the Clash and the Daytona 500 had the weather not played spoilsport. “I mean that seems like 5 million well spent, if we didn’t have weather messing with both the clash and the 500 both of those would of seen significant ratings increases from the show based on the numbers Atlanta pulled,” they opined.

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With such positive responses, it will be interesting to see what direction Netflix and the producers of NASCAR: Full Speed take for the second season. Fans will be waiting for it with bated breath.