March Madness is heating up, which means a lot more competition for sports fan’s eyeballs, but motorsports held its own.
The NASCAR Cup Series round from Phoenix last Sunday afternoon averaged a 1.93 Nielsen rating and 3.389 million household viewers on FOX, per numbers from ShowBuzzDaily.com. That was down from a 2.33/3.991m for this race last year, and from a 2.22/3.991m for the previous week’s race in Las Vegas.
NHRA’s Camping World Drag Racing Series launched its season at Gainesville on FOX, and averaged a 0.58 and 945,000 viewers. Additional coverage on FS1 bumped up the total race day audience to 1.12m, the highest ever for the Gatornationals during the FOX era, according to the sanctioning body. Last year’s finals were delayed on FS1 and averaged 0.28/458,000.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Phoenix on Saturday averaged a 0.60 and 1.025m viewers on FS1, down from 0.70/1.087 last year. The ARCA Menards Series race at Phoenix on Friday night averaged 0.12/172,000 on FS2.