A playoff race for the first time, and against far different competition than a year ago, NASCAR at Darlington scored a solid ratings bump over last year’s late night edition.
Last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Darlington (SC) averaged a 1.4 rating and 2.43 million viewers on NBCSN, up 27% in ratings and 31% in viewership from last year’s race, which began after 10 PM ET due to rain (1.1, 1.86M) but down a tick and 9% respectively from 2018 (1.5, 2.66M).
This year’s race was the first of the NASCAR playoffs. Compared to last year’s first playoff race — Las Vegas on NBCSN on an NFL Sunday — ratings were flat and viewership increased 2% from 2.38 million.
Kevin Harvick’s win ranks as the most-watched Cup Series race on NBCSN since the network’s season premiere at Texas in mid-July (2.73M).
It also ranks second out of the three Darlington races this season, behind NASCAR’s highly-rated return from hiatus on May 17 (3.7, 6.32M), but ahead of the midweek race that followed three days later (1.2, 2.09M).
Going back further, it tops only that midweek race and last year’s rain-delayed edition as the lowest rated at the track since at least 1999 and the least-watched since at least 2001.
After four-straight years airing opposite primetime college football games, Darlington instead faced an NBA playoff game on ABC (Rockets-Lakers: 2.9, 5.43M) and a Stanley Cup playoff game on NBC (Stars-Golden Knights: 0.9, 1.64M).
While the NBA and NHL combined to outpace last year’s competing Houston-Oklahoma college football game (3.0, 5.44M), this year’s head-to-head was still more favorable for NASCAR. It is generally thought that the NASCAR audience overlaps more with college football than with basketball or hockey.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 9.9]
