NASCAR ratings just keep falling.
NASCAR Cup Series racing from Dover, Del., earned a 2.1 final rating and 3.4 million viewers on Fox Sports 1 Sunday afternoon — down 16% in ratings and viewership from last year (2.5, 3.99M) and down 16% and 15% respectively from 2015 (2.5, 3.94M).
Jimmie Johnson‘s win ranks as the lowest rated edition of the race since at least 1998 and the least-watched since at least 2001. That includes 2011, when coverage was postponed to a Monday afternoon.
Ratings and viewership have now declined for 10 of 12 Cup Series races this year, with eight of those down double-digits. Dover was the 10th race to at least tie a decade-plus or all-time ratings low and the eighth to do so in viewership.
Despite the lower numbers, Sunday’s race was the top sporting event of the weekend outside of the NBA Finals — topping Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Saturday night (1.6, 3.0M) and the UEFA Champions League final on FOX and Fox Deportes (3.0M). That was not the case in adults 18-49, with NASCAR’s 0.6 rating in the demo clocking in behind the NBA, NHL (1.0) and UEFA (1.3).
* UPDATE 6.13: Dover was the 10th race to tie a decade-plus/all-time ratings low and the eighth to do so in viewership. The post previously listed it as the 11th and ninth, respectively, as Atlanta was mistakenly included among those races. That race only hit a three-year low.
[Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 6.6]
