A unique venue and return to broadcast television lifted NASCAR’s preseason “Clash” to a six-year ratings high.
Sunday’s NASCAR “Clash” from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum averaged a 2.3 rating and 4.28 million viewers on FOX, marking the highest rating and viewership for the event — which typically kicks off Speedweeks in Daytona — since 2016 (2.8, 4.84M). Not coincidentally, 2016 was also the last time the event aired on FOX.
Ratings and viewership more-than-doubled last year’s Tuesday night “Clash” on FS1 (0.9, 1.58M) and increased 54% and 74% respectively from the previous Sunday edition two years ago (1.5, 2.46M). Both aired on FS1.
The preseason exhibition, which peaked with 4.7 million viewers, averaged more viewers than all-but-four Cup Series races last season — the Daytona 500 (4.83M), Daytona “Roval” (4.75M) and the spring races from Talladega (4.70M) and Las Vegas (4.36M).*
Outside of the Winter Olympics, the “Clash” ranked second among weekend sportscasts behind the NFL Pro Bowl on ESPN, ABC and DisneyXD (6.69M).
Qualifying for the race averaged a 1.6 rating and 2.56 million viewers earlier Sunday, marking NASCAR’s largest qualifying audience for any race since Daytona 500 qualifying on FOX in 2016 (2.83M). NASCAR said Tuesday that it believes the qualifying audience is its highest on record outside of Daytona.
A Saturday afternoon practice averaged 350,000 viewers on FS2, marking that network’s largest audience of any kind since June of 2019.
* The now-standard caveat for last year’s numbers is that Nielsen undercounted out-of-home viewing. Revised, corrected figures for last year’s races were not immediately available.
