Racing has always been something of an anomaly when it comes to popularity, either outshining everything or fading away into the background. Right now, we’re sitting somewhere in the latter option, with widespread attempts being made to draw in new audiences. But it only takes one look at the demographics of these sports to understand where we can improve.
This new data comes to us from , a site that has partnered with Hookit, which analyzes social media data. The site analyzed the top-five most popular motorsports in America: NASCAR, F1, MotoGP, Formula E, and Supercross. Important to note is the lack of IndyCar being included in these studies.
The study analyzes the gender of followers of these sports brands, along with the volume of posts, engagement, and the top sponsorships by brand.
As you can imagine, there’s a larger contingent of male as opposed to female viewers, which breaks down in the following order, from most equal to least:
NASCAR: 69 percent male, 31 percent femaleSupercross: 76 percent male, 24 percent femaleMotoGP: 78 percent male, 22 percent femaleFormula One: 81 percent male, 19 percent femaleFormula E: 86 percent male, 14 percent female
You can also learn a lot from the average age range of the viewers, which breaks down as follows, from youngest to oldest:
Supercross: 38 percent 25 to 34 years oldMotoGP: 39 percent 25 to 34 years oldNASCAR: 37 percent 35 to 44 years oldFormula One: 37 per cent 35 to 44 years oldFormula E: 38 percent 35 to 44 years old
You can check out Sportspromedia for the full breakdown of stats, but we can learn a lot just from these two metrics. Namely, that there's a great opportunity for motorsport to market to more diverse and younger crowds.