With the United States playing host for the first time, the World Track & Field Championships was an unusually solid ratings draw for NBC.
Coverage of the World Track & Field Championships averaged 834,000 viewers across NBC, USA Network and CNBC, a four-fold increase over 2019 (199K) and the largest audience for the event since 2015, when coverage aired solely on the NBC broadcast network (1.16M). NBC alone averaged 1.93 million for its 12 hours of coverage, more-than-double 2019 (766K) and its highest average since 2007 — when it carried a single two-hour window (2.08M).
This year marked the first World Track & Field Championships to take place in the United States. The NBC networks carried 43 hours of programming, including four primetime windows on NBC — a dramatic increase over prior years.
NBC’s coverage on the final night of competition last Sunday delivered a 1.4 rating and 2.36 million viewers, the network’s most-watched track & field telecast — excluding the Olympics and Olympic Trials — since 1996. Coverage the previous night pulled a 1.1 and 1.73 million.
Cable viewership topped out at a 0.47 and 783,000 on USA Network last Friday, the largest track & field audience on an NBC cable network in four years.
In addition to trouncing the previous world championships three years ago, this year’s event comfortably outdrew the 2017 edition — the last to feature Usain Bolt. NBC averaged 1.28 million for four telecast windows — totaling nearly nine hours of coverage — that year.
Average viewership for World Track & Field Championships on NBC
[Nielsen estimates from NBC Sports PR]
