NASCAR’s debut on the streets of Chicago was a ratings hit.
Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Chicago averaged a 2.5 rating and 4.63 million viewers on NBC, per Nielsen fast-nationals — marking the network’s largest NASCAR audience since the 2017 season finale at Homestead-Miami (4.66M).
Including a streaming audience of 164,000 on Peacock and the other NBC digital platforms — a record for NASCAR on NBC — the average of 4.8 million was the highest for an NBC race since 2017 Brickyard 400 (5.63M).
Newcomer Shane van Gisbergen’s win, which peaked with 5.38 million from 9:15-9:30 PM ET, trails only the Daytona 500 as the most-watched NASCAR race of the season. The previous non-Daytona high was 4.55 million for Talladega on FOX in April. Among all auto races, it ranks third for the year behind Daytona and the Indy 500 (4.72M).
Excluding the Daytona 500, it was the most-watched NASCAR race in more-than-two years — since the Daytona road course on the weekend after the 500 in 2021 (4.82M).
Viewership more-than-doubled Road America on the same weekend last season, which aired on USA Network (1.93M).
Chicago led all markets Sunday with a whopping 9.3 rating.
