NASCAR was the top sporting event on a single network, but a pair of Concacaf Gold Cup took the crown in another quiet summer week.
Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race on USA Network delivered the largest single-network sports audience of the week with 2.56 million viewers, but a pair of Concacaf Gold Cup matches combined for larger audiences across multiple networks. United States-Canada on Sunday night averaged 2.32 million on Univision and 1.39 million on FS1, while Mexico-Costa Rica on Saturday drew 2.47 million on Univision and 278,000 on FS1.
MLB on FOX ranked fourth for the week among sportscasts with 2.20 million on Saturday night, followed by UFC 290 prelims on ABC (1.16M) and ESPN (704K) at a combined 1.86 million. The PGA Tour John Deere Classic on CBS (1.59M) and U.S. Women’s Open on NBC (1.55M) ranked just outside the top five.
Also topping the million viewer mark last week were a pair of Wimbledon windows on ABC (1.24M on Saturday and 1.49M on Sunday), Victor Wembanyama’s Summer League debut on ESPN Friday (1.39M), the F1 British Grand Prix on ESPN (1.17M), and the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4 (1.01M).
Across the “Big Four” broadcast networks, the championship of Major League Rugby was the least-watched sportscast with 269,000 viewers on FOX. On the broadcast “netlets,” the WNBA on ION averaged 394,000 viewers Friday night, while tape-delayed coverage of LIV Golf on The CW pulled 149,000 on Saturday and 280,000 on Sunday.
Other notable items include a third-straight week of week-over-week growth for the B1G3 basketball league, which posted 525,000 viewers on CBS Sunday. Univision’s Combate Global scored 628,000 viewers on Saturday night despite a 12:10 AM ET start. With no coverage on NBC, the U.S. track and field championships topped out at 288,000 for Sunday coverage on CNBC.
For last year’s equivalent chart, see this year-ago article from ShowBuzz Daily.
Weekly sports ratings, July 3-9
