The news around Tony Stewart’s incident at a dirt track race last Saturday night contributed to increased viewership around the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Watkins Glen Int’l on Sunday afternoon. ESPN finished with 4.94 million viewers for the Cheez-It 355 at The Glen, marking the race’s best audience figure since the net first aired the race in ’07. ESPN also drew 2.23 million viewers for “NASCAR Countdown” leading up to the race, marking the cable net’s best figure for the pre-race show since Labor Day weekend in ’12, when a Sunday night telecast leading into the Atlanta Motor Speedway race drew 2.91 million viewers. Meanwhile, ABC drew 1.93 million viewers for the Nationwide Series race on Saturday afternoon at WGI, up 12% from the same race in '13, which had to go head-to-head with the PGA Championship.
The charts below list final ratings and viewership from recent sports telecasts.
| TELECAST |
DATE
|
NET
|
TIME (ET)
|
RAT.
|
VIEWERS
(000)
|
| PGA Championship: Final Round |
8/10
|
CBS
|
2:56-9:00pm
|
5.3
|
8,238
|
| PGA Championship: Third Round |
8/9
|
CBS
|
2:00-7:17pm
|
3.0
|
4,252
|
| PGA Championship: rain delay coverage |
8/10
|
CBS
|
2:00-2:56pm
|
1.6
|
2,365
|
NASCAR Nationwide Series:
Zippo 200 (Watkins Glen) |
8/9
|
ABC
|
2:15-5:00pm
|
1.3
|
1,930
|
| "ESPN Sports Saturday" |
8/9
|
ABC
|
5:00-6:00pm
|
0.8
|
1,136
|
| World of X Games: Games of Skate |
8/10
|
ABC
|
5:00-6:00pm
|
0.6
|
823
|
| U.S. Swimming National Championships |
8/10
|
NBC
|
4:00-5:30pm
|
0.5
|
660
|
| Major League Fishing: Summit Cup Championship |
8/9
|
CBS
|
1:00-2:00pm
|
0.5
|
654
|
| U.S. Swimming National Championships |
8/9
|
NBC
|
4:00-6:00pm
|
0.5
|
636
|
| Ironman World Championship |
8/10
|
NBC
|
1:30-3:00pm
|
0.4
|
599
|
| AMA Motocross |
8/9
|
NBC
|
3:00-4:00pm
|
0.3
|
457
|
| Liga MX: Pachuca-Chivas de Guadalajara |
8/9
|
Telemundo
|
9:00-11:04pm
|
0.3
|
427
|
| MLS All-Star Game (vs. Bayern Munich) |
8/6
|
UniMas
|
9:30pm-12:00am
|
0.2
|
410
|
| World of Adventure Sports |
8/10
|
NBC
|
3:00-4:00pm
|
0.3
|
397
|
| TELECAST |
DATE
|
NET
|
TIME (ET)
|
RAT.
|
VIEWERS
(000)
|
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series:
Cheez-It 355 (Watkins Glen) |
8/10
|
ESPN
|
1:00-5:43pm
|
3.1
|
4,939
|
| NFL Preseason: Browns-Lions |
8/9
|
NFL Net
|
7:30-10:37pm
|
1.8
|
2,823
|
| "NASCAR Countdown" |
8/10
|
ESPN
|
12:00-1:00pm
|
1.5
|
2,232
|
| NFL Preseason: 49ers-Ravens |
8/7
|
NFL Net
|
7:30-10:22pm
|
1.2
|
1,808
|
| PGA Championship: Second Round |
8/8
|
TNT
|
1:00-7:51pm
|
1.2
|
1,587
|
| MLB: Nationals-Braves |
8/10
|
ESPN
|
8:00-11:17pm
|
1.0
|
1,464
|
| NFL Preseason: Cowboys-Chargers |
8/7
|
NFL Net
|
10:22pm-1:02am
|
1.0
|
1,448
|
| NFL Preseason: Saints-Rams |
8/8
|
NFL Net
|
8:00-11:22pm
|
0.9
|
1,416
|
| PGA Championship: Third Round |
8/9
|
TNT
|
11:00am-2:00pm
|
0.9
|
1,212
|
| PGA Championship: Final Round |
8/10
|
TNT
|
11:00am-2:00pm
|
0.9
|
1,171
|
