An unexpected and prolonged downpour washed away NASCAR’s best-laid plans Sunday, but the second iteration of the Cup Series Chicago Street Race held up about as well as one could expect in the ratings.
Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Chicago Street Race averaged a 2.1 rating and 3.79 million viewers on NBC (3.87 million including additional streaming data not tracked by Nielsen), down 17% in ratings and 18% in viewership from from last year’s inaugural edition (2.5, 4.6M) but still the second-largest NASCAR audience on the NBC networks in the past three years.
The race was halted for nearly 90 minutes due to heavy rainfall that had not been anticipated in Sunday’s forecast. Thanks to the delay, the race had to be shortened from its original 70 laps in order to conclude by sunset.
The race had been averaging 4.10 million prior to being red flagged, peaking at 4.3 million, with the audience dropping to 2.84 million during the delay.
Last year’s inaugural race was also affected by rain, taking place on a day that Chicago suffered record rainfall totals. Yet that historic downpour merely delayed the start of the race, rather than halting it after it was already underway.
For the season, Chicago ranks just outside of the top five most-watched races. The Daytona 500 occupies its usual slot atop the rankings with just under six million for a delayed Monday edition, followed by Atlanta (4.55M), Las Vegas (4.36M), Talladega (4.31M) and Phoenix (4.03M), all of which aired on FOX. (Keep in mind that all figures for FOX races are Nielsen-only, as opposed to the combined Nielsen/Adobe Analytics figure NBC releases.)
Should the Chicago race return for a third edition next year, it is highly likely the race will coincide with the TNT portion of the season. Under the new NASCAR media rights deal that begins next season, Amazon and TNT have a combined ten races that will occupy the late spring and early summer.
In other racing action, the Xfinity Series race at Chicago — which was not affected by weather — averaged a 1.0 and 1.75 million, up 55% and 53% respectively from last year on USA Network (0.7, 1.1M).
