NASCAR Homestead TV Rating (Viewership plummets 50%)
Ratings and viewership were down from last year’s record-setting NASCAR season finale. With Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards waging a race-long battle for the championship that Stewart won by a tiebreaker, and the race running well into Sunday night prime time due to a rain delay, last year’s event set a record as the most-viewed NASCAR race ever on ESPN with 6.8 million viewers and a 4.6 household coverage rating.
ESPN’s live telecast of Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series season finale at Homestead earned a 1.3 household coverage rating (1.1 U.S. rating), averaging 1,739,705 viewers. Last year’s race earned a 1.4 household coverage rating.
11/19/12 ESPN earned a 2.7 overnight Nielsen rating for yesterday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup series finale from Miami-Homestead Speedway, down 27% from a 3.7 overnight for the same race last year. Meanwhile, the net’s Nationwide Series final on Saturday afternoon earned a 1.1 overnight, up from a 1.0 rating on ESPN2 last year.
Why the drop? They went to go head-to-head against the USGP F1 race and lost viewers.