Jeff Gordon’s last ride and Kyle Busch’s first championship on NBC and NBCSN deliver most watched NASCAR finale since 2005

NBC Sports Group presented the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship last night, featuring the primary broadcast on NBC and spotlight coverage of the four drivers racing for the 2015 title on NBCSN.  After the smoke cleared from Kyle Busch’s victory burnouts and fans witnessed the final bow of Jeff Gordon’s iconic career, fast national data provided by The Nielsen Company shows that the event was the most-watched NASCAR Championship in a decade.

The 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship on NBC and NBCSN averaged 7.64 million viewers and posted a combined 4.42 national HH rating, marking increases of +46% (vs. 5.22 million) and +41% (vs. 3.14 HH), respectively, over last year’s presentation on ESPN.  The 7.64 million viewers make last night’s event the most-watched NASCAR season finale since NBC presented the championship event in 2005 (9.46 million). 

Additional highlights surrounding last night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship include:  

  • Viewing peaked from 7:45P-7:56 p.m. ET with nearly 12.4 million average viewers as Kyle Busch battled Kevin Harvick for the title, ranking as the largest peak audience for NASCAR since the 2015 Daytona 500
  • Last night’s race stands as NASCAR’s most-watched Fall race (Sept-Nov) since 2006’s Charlotte race on NBC (7.797 million)
  • The Top 10 markets for last night’s Sprint Cup race on NBC/NBCSN:
Rank
Metered Market
Rating
Share
1
Greenville
14.4
22
2
Greensboro
13
19
3
Indianapolis
12.6
19
4
Knoxville
11.3
17
5
Charlotte
10.1
16
6
Richmond-Petersburg
8.7
13
7
Buffalo
8.4
13
8
Nashville
8.2
13
9
Jacksonville
7.9
12
10
Louisville
7.6
12
  • Digital consumption was also impressive, as Sunday’s Homestead race finished with 84K uniques and 4.0M live minutes across NBC Sports Live Extra.
    • This was NASCAR’s best-ever race on Live Extra in terms of uniques
    • Compared to the average of the prior 2015 Sprint Cup races on NBC/NBCSN, uniques were up +126% and live minutes were up +64%.

NBC PR