The Complete 2026 NASCAR TV Ratings Tracker
What’s Happening? This year marks the second season of NASCAR’s groundbreaking 2025 media rights deal, and fans are curious to see…
NASCAR is changing course with how it measures its race viewership, per a new report, but why exactly is NASCAR making this change?
For years, television ratings were measured through Nielsen’s traditional “panel” system. That process counted on selected households across the country that agreed to let Nielsen monitor their viewing habits.
Those homes were then used to represent viewing behavior across the nation. The setup may have belonged to another era, but it brought consistency because the same measurement structure remained in place season after season.
And then came Nielsen Big Data, the system NASCAR has leaned into in recent times.
Instead of relying primarily on sample households, Big Data seeks to gather viewing data directly from millions of cable boxes and smart TVs. The idea was that more data should mean more accurate results. But recently, NASCAR discovered the problem that “more data” does not automatically mean “better data.”
The newer measurement system may not have accurately tracked NASCAR’s audience. Some groups of viewers or regions may have slipped through the cracks or been measured inconsistently.
That is why NASCAR is now moving back to “panel vs. panel” comparisons for the remainder of the season, with Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal reporting on Monday that the sanctioning body wants this season’s ratings to be compared using the same measurement structure used in prior years.
Using the newer Big Data method, NASCAR broadcasts on Fox and FS1 appeared slightly down overall, roughly 1% lower than last season, but once NASCAR isolated the panel method, the exact same races then showed a 1% increase in audience.
Essentially, one method was showing a decline, while the other pointed toward audience growth.
NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Media and Revenue Officer Brian Herbst said the organization currently places more trust in the older panel comparison, telling Karp that it was “more stable.”
Meanwhile, NASCAR’s lower-tier divisions have also shown pretty good improvements in terms of viewership. The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series has climbed 6% on The CW, while the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series has risen 19% across its races on FOX and FS1.
In particular, fans in online NASCAR circles have consistently joked that the OAP Series could perhaps surpass at least one Cup Series race down the road, something that has yet to be seen despite the series averaging 1.231 million viewers this year.
So despite the debate surrounding ratings formulas and measurement systems, NASCAR still has growth in its audience, even if it isn’t on the Cup Series side.
What’s Happening? This year marks the second season of NASCAR’s groundbreaking 2025 media rights deal, and fans are curious to see…
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