Happy Hour: Chasing TV ratings, and will Saturday night's race get postponed?

Welcome to Happy Hour. You can tweet or email us your comments throughout the week for our weekly Thursday fun.

Though this news isn’t fun. Per Sports Media Watch, television ratings for last Sunday’s race at Dover were the lowest they’ve ever been in the history of the Chase. Yes. The history of the Chase.

The 1.5 rating and 2.6 million viewers are the fewest people to ever watch a NASCAR postseason race. The ratings for the race were down over 20 percent from last year. And take a gander at this paragraph too.

Again excluding rainouts, nine of the past ten NASCAR races have hit a multi-year low in ratings and viewership. Each of those nine has either set a record-low or hit the lowest mark in at least 15 years, and seven of those nine have dropped double-digits from the previous low. Keep in mind that only one of those races, Watkins Glen, had the excuse of facing the Olympics.

Talking about television ratings can tend to be an exercise in futility. This is not one of those times. It’s clear that NASCAR is having a problem appealing to people for what could be myriad reasons. Are fans sick of the Chase format? Is the racing unappealing? Is it because there was a “lack of drama?” in the first round of the Chase? Is it something else entirely?

The grandstands at Dover were pretty damn empty too. The Xfinity race was run Sunday morning after being washed out from the day before and ticketholders to either race got to see both if they so chose. There weren’t many fans who chose to go to the Xfinity race Sunday morning and it appeared there weren’t many fans who had Xfinity tickets only who came to see the Cup race.

The ratings and interest declines can’t also be simply excused away with the acronym “NFL.” The NFL is seeing ratings declines in 2016 as well, though pro football’s viewership still towers over NASCAR.

The Sprint Cup Series won’t be up against the NFL this weekend, assuming Saturday night’s race is run as scheduled. The Charlotte area is set to get some rain from Hurricane Matthew, though the city’s proximity away from the coast means it may simply get showers rather than devastating storms.

But if that rain lingers through Saturday evening or NASCAR decides it doesn’t want fans driving through parts of a hurricane to get to the track, the race would likely be run on Sunday. While the appeal of a Chase night race is large — NASCAR’s social media team has been pumping it up all week — a move to Sunday could possibly help with eyeballs. And the quality of racing.

Races on Saturday nights tend to rate lower on TV than their Sunday counterparts, and Charlotte hasn’t produced very good racing at night lately anyway. The best races at Charlotte have been the races before the All-Star Race in May — they were run during the day after being rained out the night before.

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Since NBCSN is broadcasting will we still have to hear blathering about the vortex theory? – Jim

Jim has been banned from future Happy Hour submissions for using “vortex theory.”

If you’re a casual fan, you probably just wondered who Nick Sandler is.

Sandler is the crew chief for Ricky Stenhouse Jr., the driver that finished 11th at Dover. Stenhouse was one of 11 drivers who pitted just five times at Dover and finished ahead of two other drivers who also pitted five times. Those two drivers are Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart.

I’m looking forward to seeing if a team wants to try the “pit as infrequently” as possible strategy at Charlotte and Kansas over the next two weeks. Everyone was at the mercy of Martin Truex Jr. at Charlotte in the spring, but pit strategy got Kyle Busch the lead at Kansas. Tire wear isn’t going to be massive at either track, and clean air may be more important. If you’re a driver out of the points who can take a risk, why not?

If there’s a team in the Chase that’ll try the “stay out as much as possible” strategy, we’re banking on it being Brad Keselowski and his team.

Kevin and I live in the same city, and yes. There are a ton of advertisements, both in print and on the airwaves. It feels like I’ve heard more radio commercials this year for next weekend’s race than I have in my time in the city combined.

Kansas is also doing a promotion where you can create your own custom “Sorry, not sorry” banner.

Y’all are creative (and possibly a bit inappropriate). Go have some fun with that.

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

Follow @NickBromberg