The Ratings Game

Last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Talladega (Ala.) averaged a 2.1 rating and 3.97 million viewers on FOX, down a tick in ratings and 2% in viewership from last year (2.2, 4.04M). Excluding 2020, when the race was delayed several weeks and then postponed due to rain, Carson Hocevar’s win was the least-watched spring Talladega race since it began airing on FOX in 2001. Read more

Monday’s Pistons-Magic first round NBA playoff Game 4 averaged a combined 5.4 million viewers on NBC across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, up 155% from a Nielsen-only audience of 2.1 million for a non-exclusive Cavaliers-Heat Game 4 on TNT Sports last year. Read more

Coverage of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs was averaging 1.15 million viewers through the first five days, up 76% from last year and the highest average on record at that point of the postseason. This year’s average is up 30% from the previous high of 887,000 in 2012, and up 39% from the previous high during the current media rights deal — 832,000 in 2024.

Last Sunday’s Wisconsin-Ohio State NCAA women’s hockey national title game averaged 39,000 viewers on ESPNU, down 9% from the same matchup last year (43K).

The NCAA women’s basketball tournament was averaging 628,000 viewers through the first two rounds, up 4% from last year (602K) and behind the Caitlin Clark-fueled levels of 2024 as the highest average since 2009. Note that the 4% increase is well within the margin that can be explained entirely by Nielsen’s shift to “Big Data + Panel” methodology. Read more

Last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Darlington (S.C.) averaged a 1.3 rating and 2.43 million viewers on FS1, up a tick in ratings but down 1% in viewership from Homestead-Miami on the same weekend last year (1.2, 2.46M). Read more

The NBC family of networks averaged 1.1 million viewers for the recently-concluded Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics, per a combination of Nielsen and Adobe Analytics — up 24% from the previous edition in Beijing four years ago. That is outside the range that would be explained by Nielsen methodological changes. Read more