Another week, another low rating for NASCAR.
NASCAR Sprint Cup racing from Martinsville, the seventh of ten Chase For the Cup races, had a 1.6 final rating and 2.7 million viewers on NBCSN Sunday afternoon — down 20% in ratings and viewership from last year (2.0, 3.4M) and down 36% and 35%, respectively, from 2014 on ESPN (2.5, 4.1M).
Jimmie Johnson‘s win ranks as the lowest rated and least-watched fall Martinsville race since at least 2000, falling below the previous marks set last year. The past ten Sprint Cup races, and 11 of the past 12, have hit multi-year lows in ratings and viewership.
Excluding rainouts, 20 of 29 races this season have hit multi-year lows in ratings and/or viewership.
Sunday’s race was the fifth of the season to post a rating of 1.6 or lower — compared to just one such race over the previous eight seasons combined (and likely further back than that). It earned the third-smallest audience in the history of the Chase For the Cup, ahead of only this year’s New Hampshire (2.5M) and Dover (2.6M) races.
Again excluding rainouts, the four smallest Chase For the Cup audiences have come this year alone. In just two years airing NASCAR, NBC and NBCSN have combined to air the nine least-watched Chase races and ten of the bottom eleven.
(Sun. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 11/1)
