NASCAR Sprint Cup Race From Martinsville Sets FOX Sports 1 Audience Mark

College hoops isn’t the only sport to see sizable audiences last weekend.

On Sunday (3/29), FOX Sports televised its first ever regularly scheduled NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points race on FOX Sports 1, and the audience from Martinsville (VA) Speedway was record-setting.  Overcoming intense competition, the race attracted 4,061,000 viewers making it the most-watched motorsports event in network history, the fourth most-watched telecast ever on the network and the only non-MLB postseason event among the network’s top five. 

According to Nielsen, the race propelled FOX Sports 1 to its most-watched Sunday from 6:00 AM-3:00 AM since launch, averaging 1,068,000 viewers over that span.  Moreover, FOX Sports 1 was the most-watched ad supported cable network from 1:00-5:15 PM ET on Sunday (4,089,000 viewers), posting a +170% advantage over the next closest network (Nickelodeon, 1,511,000 viewers).  The audience for the race peaked at 5,450,000 from 5:00-5:11 PM ET as Denny Hamlin held off a final-lap charge from Brad Keselowski to cop his first win of the season.

The audience for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race supplanted the previous FOX Sports 1 motorsports record of 3,526,000 set Feb. 15, 2014 for the SPRINT UNLIMITED.  The only other Sprint Cup points event on FOX Sports 1 was last season’s Bristol race on March 16 which was moved from FOX to FOX Sports 1 due to rain.  That race averaged 3,227,000 viewers.

Preceding the race, NASCAR RACEDAY posted 1,008,000 viewers, +52% above last year’s edition from Martinsville (661,000).  Immediately following the race, a special airing of FOX SPORTS LIVE posted 1,904,000 viewers marking the show’s seventh most-watched edition ever. 

Later in the evening, Real Salt Lake’s 2-1 victory over Toronto in MLS action tallied 211,000 viewers, the largest audience for a FOX Sports 1 MLS match since opening weekend, and +50% above the comparable package’s 2014 season average (141,000).

Saturday (3/28) was a good day for racing of all kinds on FOX Sports 1.  The JOCKEY CLUB TOUR from Dubai delivered 291,000 viewers making it the second-most watched horse race in FOX Sports 1 history and more than doubled the average of the 12 previous races (120,000).  Later that day, the NASCAR CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES race from Martinsville scored 1,100,000 viewers, +22% from the 2013 race on SPEED (902,000).  Last year’s race was rained out and moved to Sunday at 5:30pm and delivered 532,000 viewers.