Normally a 49 percent drop in ratings would be a disaster, but the Kentucky Derby did about as well as possible under adverse circumstances.
The race portion of Saturday’s Kentucky Derby averaged a 4.8 rating and 9.26 million viewers on NBC, the smallest audience for the race since 2000, the last year it aired on ABC (9.1M).
In the fast-nationals reported Sunday, the race averaged a record-low 8.3 million. The unusually large 12% jump from the fast-to-final nationals is because final nationals now include out-of-home viewing. The 12% out-of-home lift is comparable to that of the Super Bowl.
Ratings sank 49% and viewership 43% from last year’s 9.4 and 16.3 million. In the fast-nationals (again excluding out-of-home data), the peak audience of 9.8 million down 47% from last year’s unusual postrace peak of 18.5 million.
Despite the steep decline and historic low, the Derby ranks as the highest rated and most-watched sportscast since the NFL Draft in April. The previous highs were a 3.7 and 6.34 million for NASCAR’s return from hiatus at Darlington in May. It also ranks as the most-watched Labor Day weekend sporting event since an Alabama-Florida State college football game three years ago (12.34M).
Outside of the NFL Draft, no sportscast has had as high a rating or as large an audience since the Super Bowl. For the year, the Derby ranks 19th in ratings and 17th in viewership among all sports broadcasts.
Nine months into 2020, the Derby, NASCAR’s Daytona 500 (4.4) and the NBA All-Star Game (4.1) are the year’s only non-football sportscasts to crack a 4.0 rating.
As with all sporting events since March, any analysis of Derby ratings should be accompanied by a laundry list of caveats. Rather than leading off the Triple Crown on the first Saturday in May, as is tradition, this year’s Derby aired four months later than scheduled — and three months into an altered Triple Crown season that began with the Belmont Stakes in June.
No fans were in attendance, meaning that NBC’s coverage also lacked the non-sports elements — fashion critiques, celebrity interviews and the like — that contribute to the Derby’s usually-sizable audience.
The Derby averaged an additional streaming audience of 133,000, a record for horse racing on NBC.
Kentucky Derby ratings, viewership, since NBC began airing event
[Nielsen estimates from NBC Sports]
