NASCAR ratings bottomed out over the weekend, with Kansas tying the lowest Cup Series mark in at least 18 years.
Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series Kansas 400 earned a 1.2 rating and 2.04 million viewers on FS1, down 25% in ratings and 22% in viewership from last year (1.6, 2.6M) and down 36% and 35% respectively from 2016 (1.9, 3.1M).
Kevin Harvick‘s win delivered the lowest rating and viewership in the history of the race (dates back to 2010). The previous lows were set last year.
Excluding rainouts, it tied the lowest NASCAR Cup Series rating at any track since at least 2000, matching last year’s fall Richmond race on NBCSN. It was the fourth Cup Series race in the past year with a rating at or below 1.3; prior to last season, no race had dipped below a 1.5.
The race posted NASCAR’s second-smallest Cup Series audience since at least ’00, narrowly ahead of last year’s fall New Hampshire race on NBCSN (1.99M).
Not counting Martinsville or Bristol, which were postponed to Monday due to rain, all ten NASCAR Cup Series races this season have declined double-digits to multi-year lows. Nine of the ten races have hit all-time or decade-plus lows, the lone exception being Atlanta (lowest since 2014).
Notably, Saturday’s race was beaten head-to-head among adults 18-49 by ESPN’s Top Rank Boxing coverage (0.35 to 0.32).
[Numbers from Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 5.15]
