Despite a Daytona 500 washout, FOX scored a slight increase in viewership for its portion of the NASCAR Cup Series season.
NASCAR races on FOX and FS1 averaged 3.37 million viewers this season, a figure that includes the postponed Daytona 500 — up 1% from last season, when Daytona was run as scheduled (3.34M). Fox Sports said Tuesday that this is the first time it has scored a year-over-year increase in a season where Daytona was rained out.
The ten races on the FOX broadcast network averaged 4.01 million, down 3% from 4.12 million last year. (Excluding Daytona both this year and last, the FOX races averaged 3.77 million — up 4% from last year’s 3.62 million.)
FS1 made up for that decline with a double-digit increase for its six races, averaging 2.39 million — up 13% from last year’s 2.12 million.
The Fox portion of the season ended Sunday with Cup Series racing from Sonoma (Ca.). Airing on the FOX broadcast network for just the second time since 2006, the race averaged a 1.6 and 2.90 million — down a tick in ratings and 1% in viewership from last year (1.7, 2.91M). In a rare over-the-air head-to-head between the three major racing series, NASCAR on FOX outdrew the F1 Canadian GP on ABC and IndyCar from Road America on NBC combined (2.9M to 2.7M).
When the new NASCAR media rights deal goes into effect next season, the Fox portion of the season will scale back to 14 races, including just five on the FOX broadcast network. The FOX schedule will no longer include the Memorial Day weekend Coca-Cola 600, which will move to Amazon’s Prime Video service.
