A playoff-high for Bruins-Islanders; multi-year highs for NASCAR and F1; another solid outing for the WNBA on ABC.
Bruins-Islanders hits playoff-high following Belmont
Airing immediately after the Belmont Stakes, Saturday’s Bruins-Islanders Stanley Cup semifinal Game 5 averaged 2.37 million viewers on NBC (including some streaming data not tracked by Nielsen) — the most-watched game of the postseason-to-date.
The previous high was 2.28 million for Capitals-Bruins Game 1 after The Preakness Stakes last month.
Monday’s Game 5 averaged 1.45 million, per John Ourand of Sports Business Journal. Abbreviated coverage of Canadiens-Jets Game 4 followed with 868,000. [NBC, Ourand/Twitter 6.8]
NASCAR hits high at Sonoma
Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Sonoma (Ca.) averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.49 million viewers on FS1, flat in ratings and up 1% in viewership from the last time it was held in 2019 (1.5, 2.48M) and the largest audience for the race since 2017 (3.2M).
Kyle Larson’s win, which peaked at 3.1 million, ranks third out of the six Cup Series races on cable this season.
The previous day’s Xfinity Series race at Mid-Ohio pulled a 0.47 and 719,000 on FS1, flat in ratings and down 3% in viewership from ’19 (0.47, 740K). [NASCAR]
F1 scores season-high at Azerbaijan
The Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix averaged a 0.6 rating and 956,000 viewers on ESPN Sunday morning, a record for the race (dates back to 2016) and the largest F1 audience of the past two seasons. It ranks fourth all-time among F1 races on cable.
Sergio Perez’ win, which peaked at 1.04 million, increased 77% over the previous 2019 edition on ESPN2 (539K).
The ESPN networks are now averaging 911,000 viewers for F1 coverage this season, up 46% from the comparable point of the 2019 season (625K). [ESPN PR]
Another solid outing for WNBA on ABC
ABC averaged 545,000 viewers for its Saturday WNBA doubleheader of Aces-Mystics (556K) and Sky-Sparks (533K), bringing the network’s season average to 574,000. All four ABC games this season have averaged at least 500,000 viewers, compared to two of the network’s eight last season.
The network’s four-game average is up 28% from its eight-game, full-season mark last year. Keep in mind last year’s figure includes one game on an NFL Sunday. [ESPN PR]
