Ratings roundup, including last weekend’s results for the major motorsports series, some low marks for Major League Baseball on FOX and ESPN, and mixed results for Games 2 and 3 of the WNBA Finals.
NASCAR scores uptick; F1 hits another high; IndyCar season up
Facing week one of the NFL season, last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Kansas averaged a 1.1 rating and 1.88 million viewers on USA Network — flat in ratings and up 5% in viewership from a Saturday night Richmond race on the same weekend last year, but the least-watched race of the season. Bubba Wallace’s win, which peaked with 2.1 million viewers, was the first Cup Series race to air on the opening Sunday of the NFL season since a Richmond makeup race in 2008.
Compared to last year’s Kansas playoff race, the third-to-last race of the season in late October, ratings fell 13% and viewership at least 11% (1.3, ~2.1M).
In other racing action last week, the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix drew a 0.6 and 995,000 viewers on ESPN2 — the largest live audience ever for the race and second-largest overall behind a tape-delayed broadcast of the 2002 race on ABC (1.05M). F1 races are now averaging 1.2 million for the season, up 30% from the same point last year (957K).
Finally, the IndyCar season ended with a 0.32 and 507,000 at Laguna Seca, down sharply from last year (0.44, ~715K). Despite the weak ending, the IndyCar season averaged 1.30 million viewers on the NBC family of networks (including additional streaming data not tracked by Nielsen), up 5% from last year (1.24M) and the highest average since 2006 on ABC and NBCSN (1.31M). Eight of 16 races averaged at least one million viewers, the most since 2008. Keep in mind all-but-three races aired on broadcast television, a dramatic increase over previous years.
Low marks for MLB on FOX and ESPN, while Yanks-Sox boosts TBS
Regional Major League Baseball on FOX (Pirates-Mets or Astros-A’s) averaged a 1.0 rating and 1.59 million viewers Thursday night, marking the network’s second-smallest audience of the season. A Saturday night window earlier this month pulled just 949,000 viewers. Viewership declined 9% from the comparable telecast in 2019, the last time MLB on FOX went head-to-head with Thursday Night Football. FOX fared better with its traditional Saturday window last week, averaging a 1.0 and 1.77 million.
In other MLB action, Giants-Cubs drew a mere 0.35 and 634,000 on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball last weekend — easily the smallest Sunday night audience of the season. The previous low was 961,000 for Giants-Cardinals opposite NBA and NHL Game 7s in May.
In a rarity, the weekly Tuesday night game on TBS averaged more viewers than Sunday Night Baseball. TBS averaged a 0.43 and 677,000 for Yankees-Red Sox Tuesday night, its third-largest audience of the season behind a pair of Mets-Yankees games.
Mixed results for Games 2 and 3 of WNBA Finals
Airing opposite Thursday Night Football, Thursday’s Game 3 of the WNBA Finals (Las Vegas-Connecticut) averaged a 0.34 rating and 579,000 viewers on ESPN, up 17% in ratings and 9% in viewership from last year on ESPN2 (Phoenix-Chicago: 0.29, 524K). Game 2 on Tuesday night was higher a 0.40 and 649,000, but that was down 13% and at least 18% from last year (Chicago-Phoenix: 0.46, ~789K). Entering Sunday’s potential Game 4 clincher, viewership for the WNBA Playoffs is up 24 percent.
(Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 9.15, 9.16, ShowBuzz Daily 9.13)
