Nascar averaged 4.59 million viewers on Fox for last weekend’s Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Confirmed:
- This was the highest TV audience for any Atlanta race since it averaged 5.07 million viewers in 2019
- Most-watched sporting event of the weekend, more than 1.5 times the audience for the National Basketball Association (NBA) game between the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks (2.9 million)
- Viewership for the race peaked at 5.6 million, while overall viewership was up 0.9 per cent over the 2024 edition
- The CW’s strong start to the Xfinity Series continued with an average of 1.3 million viewers, the most-watched second-tier race at Atlanta since 2017
Context:
While only marginal for the Atlanta race, Nascar has seen three straight year-over-year (YoY) audience increases to start the season. There is important context, though, as last year’s visits to the Clash and the Daytona 500 severely underperformed due to inclement weather.
Nascar is averaging 4.81 million viewers through the first three races of the season, which is up on the 4.01 million viewers for the same period last year. But this is comparably down on both the 2023 and 2022 seasons, which averaged 5.38 million and 5.92 million, respectively.
The stock car racing series can take heart from the performance of the Xfinity Series, which appears to have found a home on The CW. With Xfinity exiting as the title sponsor of the second-tier championship at the end of this season, the strong viewership performance should help encourage commercial conversations moving forward.
Coming next:
Next up for the Nascar Cup Series is the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at the Circuit of The Americas from 28th February to 2nd March.
Go deeper:
- Nascar’s US$7.7bn TV deal: Why the annual value went up, who gets what, and the impact on fans
- What’s going on with Nascar’s charter system?
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