Moving down the dial from broadcast to cable virtually guaranteed another a multi-year low for NASCAR.
NASCAR Cup Series racing from Darlington (S.C.) earned a 1.8 rating and 3.10 million viewers on NBCSN Sunday night, down 36% in ratings and 33% in viewership from last year (2.8, 4.6M) and down 51% and 48% respectively from 2015 (3.7, 5.9M), both of which aired on the NBC broadcast network.
Denny Hamlin‘s win ranks as the lowest rated Darlington race since at least 1998 and the least-watched since at least 1999, including the 400-mile edition that was discontinued in 2004. The previous lows were a 2.1 and 3.13 million for the 2000 Darlington 500, which was split between ESPN and ESPN2 due to rain (2.1, 3.13M).
Darlington was the 20th of 24 Cup Series races this season to post a decline in ratings and viewership, excluding rainouts. A whopping 19 races have at least tied an all-time or decade-plus low in the ratings, while 17 have done so in viewership.
For the night, the race ranked third out of the four major sporting events on national TV — trailing the West Virginia-Virginia Tech college football game on ABC (2.7, 4.6M) and Texas A&M-UCLA on FOX (1.9, 3.2M), but ahead of Red Sox-Yankees on ESPN (1.2, 2.0M).
[Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 9.6]
