Midweek Racing is a TV Ratings Killer, Kansas Race Has Lowest TV Rating Since 2000

Many of the team and drivers have been asking for midweek racing for years, and now due to the COVID-19 pandemic that canceled 10 weeks of the regular season in NASCAR we have seen several mid-week races.

Although the teams and drivers might enjoy mid-week racing, the television partners are consecutively seeing the worst television ratings for those races.

According to Sports Media Watch, Thursday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Kansas averaged a 0.9 rating at 1.47 million viewers on NBCSN, making it the least-watched Cup race on any network since at least 2000. 

MLB had their home opener on Thursday night during the NASCAR race as well, which is assumed to take some viewers attention from NASCAR.

However midweek racing in general this season has marked as some of the least watched NASCAR races.

Earlier in the season the mid-week race at Charlotte also had a 0.9 rating at 1.51 million viewers, and after a Wednesday night race at Martinsville, TV viewership was at 1.71 million viewers. The NASCAR All-Star Race ran on a Wednesday this season and saw 1.75 million viewers.

The races at Charlotte, Martinsville, and Kansas were not allowed to have spectators attend, which many would assume people who would have attended those races most likely are now watching the race from home.

Earlier this month when NASCAR raced on a Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway ratings were 4.37 million viewers.