France thinks Dale Earnhardt Jr. is to blame for bad TV ratings

Yes, you read that right.  Brian France, in his infinite wisdom thinks Dale Earnhardt Jr., with his winless season and troubles, is to blame for the drop in TV ratings. 

Now, I'm not a Jr. fan, but blaming one driver on the fall in the ratings is ridiculous.  Did some Jr. fans not watch because of Jr.?  Probably, but that is not the only reason for the drop in ratings.  I think Mr. France needs to rethink things.

"It would have helped if he would have been competitive," said France. "He didn't win an event and he certainly didn't make our playoffs. And that's unhelpful if you're trying to build ratings."

Well sure it would have helped the ratings more, the guy had a bad season, between blown motors and wrecks, but he's not the only reason ratings have fallen off. 

The introduction of the COT, which promised us better racing, the dominance of Hendrick Motorsports, single file racing at Dega and horrible TV coverage to name a few, are the reasons for the drop in ratings.  Yes, I'm sure Jr.'s bad season had some impact on the ratings, but all the other things contributed too.

"The storylines we talk about are driven by rivalries, driven by personalities, and they're also driven by dominance. Dynasties are all not bad for sports."

"Jimmie's in the early stages of what may be a dynasty. He's back-to-back champion in the stiffest of competition." 

France called Johnson "the Tom Brady of NASCAR," in reference to the clean-cut quarterback of the New England Patriots.

"He's a California good-looking guy that does everything perfectly," he said. "That's his style."

I definitely disagree with France here, Dynasties are not good for the sport.  If you've got one driver or one team doing all the winning, it's only going to make those fans happy and the rest bored.  How often have we heard this season referred to by fans as "The Jeff and Jimmie Show"?  I don't see how domination by one driver or team can help the sport.  Some may say that it makes the others try harder and that may be true, but it sure isn't going to help the ratings if you can already predict who is going to win.

I think the introduction of the COT hurt the ratings too, it didn't seem to do what it promised and it made for the most boring Dega race I've ever seen.  Some teams were behind on the COT because they didn't have the big bucks to do all the extra testing that teams like HMS and RCR did.  Now we're going to have the COT full-time, hopefully the Daytona 500 isn't the same as Dega was.

Changes to The Chase (12 in and seeding) probably had something to do with the drop in ratings too, most fans aren't too thrilled with it in the first place.  Also, the joke of qualifying too, with the guaranteed top 35 automatically in and everyone else fighting for those last 8 spots.

All of the above are reasons for the drop in ratings and I think France is just trying to come up with an excuse for the drop and Jr. seems to be the easiest thing to blame since he is the most popular driver.

Your thoughts?