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NASCAR Surpasses MLB to Become the Most Watched Event on Fox Sports 1

Published 06/03/2020, 6:40 AM EDT

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Last weekend, the NASCAR race at Bristol Motor Speedway recorded unprecedented viewership to become the most viewed sporting event on FS1 in recent years.

NASCAR journalist Adam Stern revealed the fact in a tweet. He said, @FS1 earned 2.93 million viewers for Sunday’s #SupermarketHeroes500, up from 2.81 million for last year’s Bristol spring race (which was in April). That makes it the most-watched race on FS1 since Sonoma 2017, and the most-watched event on the channel since @MLB‘s ’19 ALCS.”

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According to Nielsen, around 2.93 million individuals watched Sunday’s race at Bristol. That is a decent number taking everything into account. And Its gave NASCAR the title for ‘the most-watched race’ on Fox Sports 1 since 2017. Additionally, it’s higher than the last year’s number at Bristol. Last year, 2.8 million people tuned in for the Bristol spring race in March.

Additionally, these high TV numbers will be particularly useful for NASCAR. As the series has been suffering from sliding TV viewership since late 2010.

NASCAR’s return race at Darlington got over 6.32 million views

May 17 Darlington race, won by Kevin Harvick, drew a normal of 6.32 million watchers. It delivered the most watchers for a NASCAR race that wasn’t the Daytona 500 since the April 2016 race at Talladega.

Additionally, the number was good enough to assume that NASCAR would get decent viewership continuously. As it was the only major sporting event to continue racing in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

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NASCAR saw a solid TV crowd support for its return race on May 17. However, the series has not been able to sustain the viewership numbers. Up until now, the surge has been an on and off affair.

On May 24, Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte posted the lowest viewership figure for any race in the past 20 years. Despite NASCAR being the only significant racing event on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. A low number of 3.96 million views were recorded.

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The numbers for NASCAR’s two midweek races haven’t been incredible either. However, rain in Charlotte could be the reason for the low numbers. Last week, race at Charlotte was pushed to Thursday on account of downpour and the May 20 race at Darlington finished 28 laps early because of the downpour.

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Written by:

Mrinal Kuniyal

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Mrinal Kuniyal has been a contributor to EssentiallSports since early 2020 and has focused on Formula 1, NASCAR, and IndyCar. He's a management graduate and his areas of interest include motorsports, marketing, and music.
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