Mid-Week NASCAR All-Star Race at Bristol Not a Big Hit With Fans

The NASCAR All-Star race on Wednesday couldn’t beat the TV viewership numbers from last year. Even though the All-Star race was one of the only big sporting events on that day. Last year, the All-Star race was held on a weekend in May at Charlotte.

The mid-week race allowed fans to attend for a change. The Bristol Motor Speedway was allowed to host up to 35 thousand fans.

However, barely 20 thousand fans were present in the stands. One reason could be the race happening on a Wednesday. Mid-week races are still a new concept for many fans and it might have affected the TV viewership.

After the COVID-19 lockdown, NASCAR decided to cut down the qualifying race and practice sessions in order to fit in more races in a limited schedule. Additionally, mid-week races were made more prominent in the updated schedule.

NASCAR journalist Adam Stern reveals the TV viewership numbers. He wrote, “.@FS1 earned 2.076 million viewers for last night’s NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race at Bristol, down from 2.448M for last year’s race, which was on Saturday night in May at Charlotte.”

A few weeks ago, the NASCAR Cup Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway received a lukewarm response. The TV viewership numbers were good in absolute terms but the race was one of the least viewed Brickyard 400 races.

NASCAR All-Star race still tops the TV Viewership list for the day

Despite not being able to top off last year’s numbers the race was still the highest viewed sporting event of the night. Additionally, around 1.5 million people saw Bubba Wallace crash out in the 2020 NASCAR All-Star Open.

This was over 300 thousand more than the last year’s Monster Energy Open where Kyle Larson swept the floor in the final stage.

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