The NBA’s two best teams delivered ESPN’s second-best audience of the season. In other news, NASCAR’s Xfinity Series holding up relatively well compared to last year, and the Formula 1 season started on a better note for NBCSN.
Warriors-Spurs Nears ESPN Season-High
- Warriors-Spurs scored a 1.8 final rating and 2.9 million viewers on ESPN’s NBA Wednesday last night, the network’s second-largest audience of the season behind Celtics-Knicks on Christmas Day (3.7M). Overall, Golden State’s comeback win was the most-watched game on cable since Cavaliers-Warriors on TNT in January (4.5M) and the most-watched regardless of network since Warriors-Knicks on ABC earlier this month (3.3M). The Warriors have played in eight of the season’s top twelve games.
NASCAR Xfinity Holding Up Better Than Cup Series
- NASCAR Xfinity Series racing from Fontana (CA) earned a 0.9 final rating and 1.5 million viewers on Fox Sports 1 last Saturday, down a tick in ratings but up a fraction of a percent in viewership (from 1.459M to 1.460M) compared to last year, and flat and up 4% respectively from 2015 (0.9, 1.4M). While Sprint Cup viewership has declined for four straight weeks, the Xfinity Series has posted increases for three of five races this season (a fourth race was down just 0.2%).
F1 Opener Posts Modest Increase
- The season opening Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix had 238,000 viewers on NBCSN last Sunday morning, up 7% from last year (222K) but down 8% from 2015 (260K). It ranks third out of the five editions of the race on NBCSN.
