More than two months after it was originally supposed to be run, NASCAR’s spring race at Bristol posted a small bump over last year.
NASCAR Cup Series racing from Bristol (Tenn.) averaged a 1.7 rating and 2.93 million viewers on FS1 Sunday, marking the largest Cup Series audience on the network in nearly three years (2017 Sonoma: 3.24M).
Compared to last year’s Bristol race, which was run as scheduled in March, Brad Keselowski’s win was flat in ratings and increased 4% in viewership (from 2.81M). It ranks as the most-watched spring Bristol race since 2016 (5.46M), with the caveat that the race was postponed to Mondays in 2017 and 2018.
Excluding rainouts, it tops only last year as the least-watched edition of the race since at least 2000. That also comes with a caveat; the race aired on broadcast television every year from 2001-18.
After returning from hiatus with an average of 6.32 million viewers at Darlington — the largest audience for a non-Daytona race since 2017 — NASCAR viewership has been mostly unchanged from the pre-pandemic norm in the weeks since. That is despite a lack of competition during the quietest stretch in modern sports history.
Sunday’s race delivered the largest FS1 audience since Game 6 of last year’s Yankees-Astros MLB ALCS Game 6 (7.47M), though that is not unusual. NASCAR is generally the most-watched FS1 property outside of the MLB Postseason.
[Nielsen estimates from Fox Sports]
