Ratings roundup; FS1 neared a group play high for its Women’s World Cup coverage, plus last week’s motorsports and baseball viewership.
Argentina-South Africa nears FS1 high
Thursday’s Argentina-South Africa FIFA Women’s World Cup group stage match averaged 887,000 viewers on FS1, trailing only Brazil-South Korea in 2015 (965K) as the most-watched non-U.S. group stage match ever on the network. It also ranks second for this year’s tournament (excluding U.S. matches) behind only Canada-Nigeria on FOX on the opening night of play.
Earlier in the week, Colombia-Brazil averaged 661,000 on FS1 Monday night. Both matches outperformed the network’s 2019 average for non-U.S. group stage windows (449K).
NASCAR, IndyCar, hit highs last weekend; F1 down
Last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Pocono averaged a 1.6 rating and 2.81 million viewers on USA Network (2.83M including additional streaming data not tracked by Nielsen), marking the largest NASCAR audience on cable since Darlington on FS1 two years ago (3.09M) and the most-watched race at Pocono since 2017.
In other action, the IndyCar doubleheader from Iowa averaged 1.12 million viewers on NBC (including additional streaming viewership), up 31% from last year (853K). Coverage followed the British Open on both days, while last year’s windows led out of the lower-rated Senior British Open.
NBC Sports is now averaging 2.89 million viewers for NASCAR, its highest five-race average since 2018. Its IndyCar coverage is averaging 1.51 million, the highest for the series at this point of the season since 2016.
Rounding out last weekend’s racing action, the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix averaged a 0.6 and 1.04 million — down 11% in ratings (0.63 to 0.56) and 17% in viewership (vs. 1.25M) year-over-year.
Recent gains for MLB
ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball (Mets-Red Sox) averaged a combined 0.8 rating and 1.46 million viewers across ESPN (0.7, 1.30M) and ESPN2 (0.1, 154K) last weekend, flat in ratings and up in viewership from Padres-Mets on ESPN alone last year (0.8, 1.37M).
The prior night, regional action on FOX averaged a 1.1 and 1.93 million — up 17% and 10% respectively from a year ago (0.95, 1.75M).
Shifting to the workweek, Mets-Yankees drew a 0.33 and season-high 546,000 on TBS Tuesday night. Figures for Wednesday’s Braves-Red Sox game on ESPN were not immediately available.
For more sports ratings, see the latest weekly chart.
(Some data from network PR, Programming Insider 7.27)
