Though it did not go entirely unscathed from the elements, the Daytona 500 rebounded from the past two rain-soaked years on a crowded sports day.
Last Sunday’s Daytona 500 averaged a 3.8 rating and 7.49 million viewers on FOX, marking the highest rated and most-watched edition of the race since 2023. It was the first Daytona 500 since 2023 that was not delayed due to rain, but it was nonetheless impacted by the weather — moving up an hour due to the forecast. (NASCAR estimates that viewership declines 5% for every hour a race is moved up.)
Tyler Reddick’s win, which peaked with 9.15 million in the 5:15 PM ET quarter-hour, also surpassed last year’s Indy 500 (7.09M) as the most-watched motorsports event of any kind since 2023. Last year marked just the second time since 1993 that the Indy 500 outdrew Daytona, but to repeat that feat this year, the race would have to hit at least a 20-year high.
Ratings increased 8% and viewership 11% from last year’s Daytona 500, which was delayed into the primetime hours and had to compete with NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” 50th anniversary special (3.4, 6.76M).
This year’s race faced tough competition of its own from the Winter Olympics and NBA All-Star Game. The 500 outdrew both on a Nielsen-only basis, but NBC uses a separate measurement company (Adobe Analytics) to track its streaming viewership and then combines those numbers with Nielsen data. (NBC’s position is that because Nielsen does not track its streaming audience, its combined Nielsen + Adobe audience figures are comparable to the Nielsen-only figures of other networks.)
NBC’s final, combined figures for Sunday were not immediately available, but the network said earlier in the week that the All-Star Game averaged 8.8 million across Nielsen and Adobe. That would mark the first time the NBA All-Star Game has outdrawn the 500 on the same day (dates back to 2004).
Daytona almost certainly came out ahead during the 45-minute period the events overlapped (5-5:45 PM ET) — winning that particular head-to-head by 39% on a Nielsen-only basis, a lead that would probably not be bridged by inclusion of Adobe Analytics.
There was a notable NBA connection in Sunday’s race, as the victorious Reddick is part of the racing team owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin. The 23/XI racing team has been the talk of the sport the past year due to its high-profile owners and its recent legal battle with NASCAR. But given the way the race played out — Reddick led for the first time on the last lap — it is unlikely that the Jordan effect significantly impacted the numbers. There was no impact when Reddick won at Talladega last year.
While Nielsen methodological changes have generally impacted sports viewing across the board, it should be noted that NASCAR last season did not benefit much at all from the measurement company’s September shift to “Big Data + Panel” methodology. Last year’s Cup Series season averaged 2.476 million viewers on a panel-only basis, rising to 2.478 million under “Big Data + Panel.”
