“We’re not where we think we could be”: NASCAR aiming to build 1.35M YT fanbase in 2025

NASCAR’s Executive Vice President and Chief Brand Officer Tim Clark recently came out and detailed the association’s plan to grow the social media fanbase, especially the NASCAR YouTube channel. Motorsport reporter Adam Stern uploaded the comments made by Clark on social media platform X on February 15, 2025.

NASCAR currently has 1.35 million subscribers on its YouTube channel. The NASCAR EVP detailed how the numbers are good, but he'd like to have seen better growth on YouTube. As per the X post, Clark said:

“We’re happy with some of the progress we’ve made on YouTube, but I think we would acknowledge that we’re not where we think we could be.”

Tim Clark also detailed NASCAR’s plans to enhance its content and build the social media presence of the sport. He revealed the steps taken by the association to put the plan into action as he said (via SBJ):

“You got the new production facility in Concord [N.C.], the new media partners. We are building a content team and infrastructure that we are really bullish on leading us into the future. Whether it's original content and a Netflix show, whether it's original projects that will be on Amazon, content on our social media channels, YouTube.”

As per Social Blade, the NASCAR YouTube channel had 1.15 million followers in February of 2024 which has grown to 1.35 million in a year, which is close to an 18% growth in the number of subscribers.

The NASCAR YouTube channel has uploaded over 20,000 videos on its channel and has acquired over 870 million views. However, vidIQ suggests that the average video length and engagement rate are below average at 2.9 minutes and 2.79% respectively.

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NASCAR EVP details the struggles of providing fans “POV perspective in a two-dimensional environment”

The excitement, rush, and adrenaline of NASCAR, or any motorsport for that matter are very difficult to portray through a screen. The sound of the cars, the gust of wind as the car passes by and the stands shaking can only be felt on a track.

Tim Clark explained the same challenge and detailed how replicating the thrill of motorsports through a screen is guaranteed to catch a fan's attention. He said (via SBJ):

“Our sport is really unique in that it's much harder to get a POV perspective in a two-dimensional environment - coming to the racetrack is obviously a huge win for us. I think we really like our chances of getting a fan for life if they can come out to the racetrack, so anything that can be replicated in an immersive environment, we're very bullish on.”

NASCAR has over 3.3M followers on Instagram and over 3.6M followers on X.