NASCAR Bristol ratings hit a new low last weekend, though with a couple of caveats.
NASCAR Cup Series racing from Bristol (Tenn.) earned a 1.7 rating and 2.81 million viewers on FS1 last Sunday, down 50% in ratings and 49% in viewership from 2016 on FOX, the last time the race was run as scheduled (3.4, 5.46M). Last year’s race was postponed to Monday and earned 1.96 million viewers.
Compared to the second FS1 race of last season, Texas, ratings were flat and viewership fell 1% from 2.82 million. Keep in mind the Texas race aired opposite the final round of the Masters.
Kyle Busch’s win ranks as the lowest rated spring Bristol race since at least 1998 and the least-watched since at least 2001. The last time the race aired on cable, 2000, it had a 3.7 rating on ESPN.
Bristol was the fourth of eight races to decline this season, though the move from broadcast to cable — and the distant 2016 comparison — no doubt played a major role.
Outside of the men’s and women’s Final Four, Bristol was the most-watched sporting event of the weekend. It ranked second in ratings, behind the final round of the PGA Tour Texas Open on NBC (1.8), and third in adults 18-49 — behind ABC’s Thunder-Timberwolves NBA game and Rockies-Dodgers on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.
[Numbers from Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 4.10]
