NASCAR’s Bristol night race fell to its lowest audience in at least 15 years.
NASCAR Sprint Cup racing from Bristol earned a 2.1 final rating and 3.6 million viewers on NBCSN Saturday night, down 34% in ratings and 29% in viewership from last year (3.2, 5.1M) and down 46% and 43%, respectively, from 2013 (3.9, 6.3M), both of which aired on ABC.
Joey Logano‘s win ranks as the lowest rated edition of the race since at least 1998 and the least-watched since at least 2000, falling below the previous marks set over those respective spans — a 2.8 in 1999 and 5.0 million viewers in 2008.
The race also ranks as the fourth-least watched Sprint Cup telecast on any network this season, ahead of only Michigan on Fox Sports 1 in June (3.5M), Kentucky on NBCSN in July (3.2M) and rain-delayed coverage from Kansas on FS1 in May (2.5M). Overall, three of the season’s four smallest audiences have been for Saturday night races on cable.
All 13 NASCAR Sprint Cup races on cable this season have had a decline in ratings and/or viewership, with each hitting either a record low or the lowest marks in over a decade.
This year is the first of the new NASCAR television deal which moved races from ESPN and TNT to NBCSN and FS1. As of July, neither NBCSN nor FS1 was in 85 million homes, while both ESPN and TNT were in north of 90 million.
(Sat. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily, with additional info from TV Media Insights)
