This will be the start of a nuanced period when it comes to NASCAR television ratings.
It was Week One of the National Football League season, with all 32 fanbases thinking they are still Super Bowl bound and record viewership across the board. Specifically, CBS on Sunday averaged 23.9 million viewers during its 4:25 national window and FOX hit 17.9 million.
The CBS number was a 27-year high and the FOX number was a 10-year high, which makes it a challenge for the NASCAR Cup Series to run head-to-head with that and draw anything that creates a positive headline.
Nevertheless, USA Network got a 0.82 rating and 1.525 million viewers for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway, which is down from 1.8 million for the second round playoff race at Watkins Glen last year.
On the other hand, the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at ‘Gateway’ on the CW Network continued a strong trend of season-long numbers, arguably buoyed by college football both before and after the race, but also opposed to games on other networks.
It was just the second race this season not affected by weather to not reach a million viewers at 989,000. Last week at Portland, late night on the west coast and also against college football drew 733,000.
Some additional notes provided by a network executive:
- Audience up +23% compared to last year’s same weekend race from Atlanta (9/7/24 on USA)
- Viewership up +9% compared to last year’s 26th race from Bristol (9/20/24 on USA)
- Race peaked at 1,160,000 viewers from 9:45-10:00pm ET
