NASCAR Bristol TV Rating

UPDATE #2 The final NASCAR Nationwide Bristol national rating, was not a 1.6 as ESPN reported below, but in fact a 1.3, so it was down from the 1.5 last year. You must be careful when reading the ratings and cannot confuse a cable national rating (ESPNs number) with an overall national rating (1.3). There are more overall households with TV sets than households with cable TV. So when you look at total households with TV sets the rating number is lower than just cable TV household ratings.

08/25/10 The live telecast of Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Bristol International Raceway on ABC earned a final national household rating of 3.5, averaging 5,841,952 viewers, down 8% from last year's final 3.8 rating on ESPN. However, the number of viewers this year, because it was on network TV instead of cable, was up from the 5.3M viewers in 2009.

ESPN’s live telecast of Friday night’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Bristol earned a final national household coverage rating of 1.6, averaging 2,053,490 viewers. The rating was up from the 1.5 for last year’s race that aired on ESPN2. Five of the last eight Nationwide Series races have seen ratings growth over the corresponding event last year, while the other three were even. ESPN’s NASCAR Nationwide Series ratings are up 6% compared to this point last year.

08/23/10 The overnight TV rating for the NASCAR Sprint Cup: Irwin Tools Night Race on ABC Saturday was a 3.0, which is very bad news yet again for NASCAR. Last year's final rating was a 3.8 but that was on a cable channel (ESPN). A 3.0 represents an 11.1% drop, but more importantly it is another major blow to NASCAR. While one can understand why their grandstands have empty seats (people out of work are not going to buy expensive NASCAR tickets), TV is free, so even if you are unemployed you would still watch the NASCAR race on TV. Right? Wrong? NASCAR has been losing TV viewers for four straight years now and this is an ominous sign. And when you lose them for a popular race like Bristol, it is even more bad news.