Another week, another downward-trending television rating for the NASCAR Cup Series. This week, however, there is a good reason for it.
Sunday’s race at the Phoenix International Speedway was watched by 5.4 million viewers and attained a 3.3 rating, as reported by Sports Business Daily, down from 6.6 million viewers and a 4.0 rating last season.
That may seem like a pretty steep drop-off, especially considering the fight the previous week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway between Joey Logano and Kyle Busch, but this year NASCAR went up against the NCAA Tournament at Phoenix as opposed to last season. In 2016, the spring race at Auto Club Speedway went up against March Madness and had a 4.0 rating with 8.6 million viewers.
The race at Phoenix was still the second most-watched sporting event of the weekend, finishing behind only the tournament in the ratings.
The ratings didn’t all go down for NASCAR programming this weekend, however. The NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Phoenix was watched by 1.85 million viewers, slightly up from 1.82 million last year.
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.