Ratings Roundup: MLS Is Back Notches Big Opener; NBC Scores With NASCAR-IndyCar Doubleheader By SVG Staff
Friday, July 10, 2020 - 9:30 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Ratings roundup is a rundown of rating news from the past week and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, the MLS Is Back Tournament opener Nets ESPN big viewership, NBC Sports draws a big crowd for its first NASCAR race of the season, CBS Sports continues to tee up big viewership for the PGA Tour, and much more.
MLS Is Back Opener Posts Big Viewership
Wednesday night's MLS is Back Tournament opening match (a 2-1 Orlando City SC victory over in-state rival Inter Miami CF) averaged 492,000 viewers on ESPN and ESPN Deportes. This is the second most-viewed MLS regular-season telecast (over 64 matches) on ESPN networks since March 11, 2018, when 583,000 people (2+) tuned in for DC United vs. Atlanta United; behind 663,000 combined viewers for the 2020 season-opening LAFC-Inter Miami CF match on March 1. On ESPN, the MLS is Back Tournament opener averaged 464,000 viewers - ESPN's fifth most-viewed regular season telecast in five seasons. The audience peaked from 9:45-10 p.m. ET with 521,000 viewers. On ESPN Deportes, an additional 28,000 viewers watched.
Season-to-date, Major League Soccer is averaging 489,000 combined viewers on ESPN and ESPN Deportes, a 27 percent increase compared to the first four matches in 2019 (384,000 viewers). Orlando City SC-Inter Miami CF is ESPN's fourth match of the 2020 MLS season. The previous three were played in early March before the season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.
NBC Sports Draws Big Audience for First NASCAR Race of Season
NBC Sports' first NASCAR Cup Series race of the 2020 season produced significant viewership gains from 2019, as the Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400 Powered by Big Machine Records at Indianapolis Motor Speedway averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 4.370 million viewers - up 46% vs. same race in 2019, which ran in September (according to Fast National data by Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics). Sunday's race, which started roughly an hour late due to weather, was also up 32% compared to last year's NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway on the comparable weekend (7/7/2019), which delivered a TAD of 3.313 million viewers.
Additional ratings highlights from NBC Sports' first NASCAR Cup Series race of the 2020 season, include a 2.67 HH rating, up 41% vs. last year's Brickyard (1.89 rating) and up 26% vs. last year's race at Daytona (2.12 rating); 4.343 million TV-only viewers, up 46% vs. last year's race (2.974 million) and up 32% vs. Daytona (3.288 million); Peak viewership of 5.018 million TV-only viewers from 8:30-8:45 p.m. ET; and 26,800 Average Minute Audience (AMA) streaming on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app, up 57% vs. last year's Brickyard (17,000) and 9% compared to Daytona.
Viewership for the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (5:24-9 p.m. ET) was up 39% vs. the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series average on NBC (3.146 million viewers; seven races). The race also stands as NBC's most-watched sports program since January's NFL Divisional Playoff between the Minnesota Vikings and San Francisco 49ers (1/11/20; 30.210 million viewers).
Meanwhile,, viewership of Saturday's INDYCAR GMR Grand Prix on NBC was up 7% vs. the same race in 2019, while the NASCAR Xfinity Series Pennzoil 150 was the most-watched Xfinity race from the Brickyard in three years (1.693 million, NBCSN, 2017), up 21% vs. the series' four races on NBC in 2019.
CBS Sports Continues PGA Tour Momentum
CBS Sports Final-Round Coverage of Rocket Mortgage Classic delivered a 56% rise in viewership over last year with 2.893 million viewers. Overall, CBS Sports' coverage of the four PGA Tour events since the return to golf in June is up 26% in viewership over the same tournaments last year, averaging 2.386 million viewers.
Odds and Ends: Hot Dog Eating, F1, TBT, German Cup Final, and Cornhole
The socially-distanced version of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on ESPN last Saturday averaged 966,000 viewers, the smallest audience since 2005 when it received 860,000 viewers
Sunday's Formula 1 opener - the Austrian Grand Prix - averaged a 0.5 rating and 752,000 viewers on ESPN, which is the largest audience for the event since it returned to the schedule in 1997
The opening weekend of The Basketball Tournament averaged 173,000 viewers across ESPN and ESPN2, with none of the eight games exceeding 210,000 viewers
Saturday's German Cup final between Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen averaged 108,000 viewers on ESPN2, up 38% from last year on ESPNEWS (79K)
ESPN averaged its largest Cornhole audience this year with 349,000 viewers for Saturday's post-Hot Dog Contest window.
Check out SportsMediaWatch's ratings page for more in-depth coverage
North America Stories
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
11/06/2026
Nielsen has released a new soccer fandom consumer research report, The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition, examining the soccer audience in the...
11/06/2026
Telemundo will launch its FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage on Thursday, June 11 with...
11/06/2026
FuboTV Inc. has announced a distribution agreement with NBCUniversal. Fubo customers can now stream Telemundo and Universo, with NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), NBC...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced its in-app features for FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage in Spain...
11/06/2026
Roblox has released the 2026 Roblox Digital Expression Report: Wave 4 - Sports D...
11/06/2026
FIFA has unveiled DNA, the Official FIFA World Cup 2026 Anthem, performed by A...
11/06/2026
ESPN will provide English- and Spanish-language news and information coverage of FIFA World Cup 2026 across its U.S. media platforms from June 11 through July 1...
11/06/2026
The latest product of the outstanding RIT Sports Network program, this recent grad from Long Island is carving out a promising path in broadcast engineering
In...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced a multi-year agreement to make DSPORTS channels available to ...
Ratings Roundup: MLS Is Back Notches Big Opener; NBC Scores With NASCAR-IndyCar Doubleheader By SVG Staff 
