The Complete 2024 NASCAR TV Ratings Tracker
What’s Happening? There are few things more important to NASCAR than TV ratings. TV networks are largely responsible for funding the…
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season is over, and the ratings are in. Despite rain delays for important events, NASCAR saw a small uptick in viewership. Here is everything you need to know from the ratings.
What’s Happening? There are few things more important to NASCAR than TV ratings. TV networks are largely responsible for funding the…
Of the top five races this season, four are from the first five races of the season, of which NASCAR slowly declined until dropping off substantially at the eighth race of the season in Richmond.
Notably, the Daytona 500, despite the one-day rain delay, once again pulled NASCAR’s largest viewership of the season. Another notable stat from the top five is that Phoenix, host of the NASCAR Cup Series championship race, had a higher viewership for its regular-season race than its 2.895 million viewers for the championship race.
Four of the bottom five races consist of playoff races in the USA; these races competed with the NFL consistently throughout the fall. However, New Hampshire, with its lengthy rain delay, is an outlier; funny enough, it rose from the 2023 rain-delayed race at its 1.030 million viewers.
Most importantly, a closer look at the stats shows that four of these races saw an uptick in viewership from their corresponding race weekend 2023: Kansas, Watkins Glen, Bristol, and New Hampshire.
Weather will always be a major factor when gauging NASCAR’s most improved and least improved race weekends. For example, New Hampshire and Dover both saw major increases in 2024 due to 2023’s wet weather races.
When factoring out races unaffected by weather, the spring Richmond race on Fox pulled 3.310 million viewers. This race saw teammate drama, with Denny Hamlin jumping the restart on teammate Martin Truex Jr. However, a major factor in this boost was its primetime slot on Fox.
The greatest statistical boost for a single points race, unchanged from its 2023 channel or race weekend, is Talladega’s fall race, which had 0.622 million more viewers than in 2023, up 19.509%. Those who tuned into this race saw a 28-car crash, the largest in NASCAR history.
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While the weather will factor into single-race viewership decreases, non-points-paying races saw a major drop in 2024 as well.
We will not qualify these as the largest decrease in 2024 viewership as they are not points races. However, the Busch Clash in Los Angeles (down 58.569% from 2023), which aired one day early and on FS1 rather than Fox, was the cause of such a statistical decrease.
The largest drop for a single race unaffected by race weekend change or weather is Pocono. In this race, the 21st of the season, Ryan Blaney led 44 laps and ran away with the win. This 14.850% drop in viewers is odd, as NASCAR has no competition from the major four sports during this time of year aside from the MLB.
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This year, the 10-race NASCAR Cup Series playoffs totaled 23.008 million viewers and averaged 2.301 million viewers per race. Viewership is up 4.787% from the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. The single largest increase in viewers was, of course, the largest increase of the season, the fall race at Talladega.
However, the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race, arguably the most important race of the season, is down 0.856%. While not a dramatic drop like in past seasons, this is one of those statistics NASCAR would hope to be up no matter what.
This year, NASCAR overcame some crucial rain at races that usually garnered high numbers to get a slight uptick in overall viewership. Furthermore, and most importantly for NASCAR, the Playoff viewership is up despite complaints from fans about the format.
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