Welcome back to “The Needle,” a new column on Sports Media Watch dedicated to analyzing ratings, providing context to the numbers, and exploring broader trends in television viewing and sports measurement.
For sports media enthusiasts, Sundays hold special significance. This is not due to the Indy 500’s premiere on FOX or the potential for the Indiana Pacers to dominate the New York Knicks, inching closer to an NBA Finals featuring the smallest market in history. Instead, about 600 miles from Indianapolis, the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, N.C. will achieve a noteworthy milestone in sports television: it will be the first sporting event outside the NFL to be solely measured by Nielsen and broadcast exclusively on a streaming service.
While this may seem underwhelming as milestones go, its importance should not be underestimated. All previous Nielsen-rated streaming events have consisted of NFL games, which don’t test the competitiveness of platforms such as Prime Video and Peacock against traditional cable and broadcast. Viewers have transitioned easily between platforms for the NFL, but will they do the same for NASCAR or the NBA?
We will soon find out. All five NASCAR Cup Series races on Prime Video will have Nielsen measurement, employing new Nielsen Big Data metrics, retroactive to 2023 for year-over-year comparisons.
Thus far, viewership metrics for non-NFL streaming exclusives have been elusive, with networks only revealing them at their discretion, which has been rare. NBC has shared some Adobe Analytics numbers for select Peacock-exclusive Premier League matches, but the data for college basketball on Peacock or the NHL on ESPN+ remains largely unknown, as does the audience for MLB and MLS on Apple TV+.
As streaming services secure prominent sports rights, Nielsen measurement will soon become a standard expectation. The absence of data might not be concerning for lesser-viewed college basketball games, but for significant events like the Coca-Cola 600, it’s a different matter. This yearly race, a highlight of Memorial Day weekend, has been broadcast since FOX began airing NASCAR in 2001.
Last year’s Coca-Cola 600, which faced a rain-shortened broadcast against the delayed Indy 500, attracted only 3.10 million viewers. Although this is low for broadcast, it surpasses the audience for every Cup Series race on cable in the past four years. Given that streaming viewership may typically lag behind cable, this year’s race might struggle to meet that benchmark. The likelihood that the Coca-Cola 600 can once again outperform the Indy 500 appears slim for now.
As NASCAR embarks on a seven-year deal with Amazon, they are aiming for long-term growth. NASCAR Senior Vice President, Broadcasting & Innovation Brian Herbst likened their expectations to the trajectory of Thursday Night Football on Amazon, which started lower but has steadily gained viewers. The hope is to transition more fans to Amazon Prime while appealing to young, cord-cutter audiences.
Additional Insights: NBA on Memorial Day and More
Memorial Day used to be a notable day for the NBA, featuring high-profile games that captivated millions during the 1990s. However, over time, the league has largely neglected this holiday. The upcoming Thunder-Timberwolves Game 4 will be just the third NBA game on Memorial Day since 2018.
Unlike Christmas or Thanksgiving, Memorial Day does not gather viewers indoors, resulting in lower viewership potential. It presents an opportunity for the NBA, especially with future media rights potentially rekindling that tradition now that they will return to NBC.
On “The Needle,” here’s a roundup of notable viewership statistics from the past week. For real-time updates, check the SMW Sports Ratings Tracker.
- 2.7 million: Viewership for last Saturday’s WNBA opening weekend game between the Fever and Sky, marking the largest regular season audience since 2000.
- 2.5 million: Audience for the Mets-Yankees Subway Series game on ESPN, the largest Sunday Night Baseball audience since 2018.
- 3.6 million: Season-to-date average for the PGA TOUR on CBS, up 13% from the previous year, the highest since 2019.
- 4.6 million: The viewership for the race portion of the Preakness Stakes, the smallest since it began airing on NBC in 2001, surpassed only by the COVID-delayed 2020 edition.
