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
02/12/2025
Case Study: How Mid-Atlantic Sports Network Moved to All-IP Distribution in 60 D...
02/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Lee Corso, Coach, Commentator, FirebrandBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | S...
02/12/2025
SVG All-Stars: Dan Nabors, Senior Director, Remote Engineering, TNT SportsThe veteran tech leader is helping guide Warner Bros. Discovery's at-home' re...
02/12/2025
National Lacrosse League Opens Season With New Cloud-Based Official Replay-Revie...
02/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: The Cinematic Look in Live Production - Bridging Aesthetic...
02/12/2025
SVG India Announces Advisory Board; JioStar's Prashant Khanna Named ChairmanBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 11:15 am
Print This Story |...
02/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: New AI Production Tools Workshop' Features ESPN, F...
02/12/2025
Written and directed by Hailey Gates, Atropia won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival....
02/12/2025
The lightweight and highly portable CORVUS-RAVEN, recently demonstrated at the V...
02/12/2025
The lightweight, rugged Panther 2 tri-band VSAT delivers high-speed data communications for Internet, VPN connectivity and video transmission over commercial an...
02/12/2025
NGID volunteers in the United States
NGID volunteers in Mexico
NGID volunteers in India
NGID volunteers in Spain
NGID volunteers in Australia
NGID voluntee...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
SAN DIEGO Sony Electronics today introduced the Alpha 7 V (ILCE-7M5), the fifth generation of its Alpha 7 full-frame mirrorless lineup, powered by the newly dev...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a docket for comments on Nexstar Media Group's proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna and se...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters has added a trio of media executives, Veronica Rodriguez, Matt Schnaars and Jeff Warshaw, to its board of di...
02/12/2025
MILAN, Italy Brightcove has released seven new features designed to expand global reach, improve audience engagement, enhance live-streaming quality and streaml...
02/12/2025
BCNEXXT, the developers of the advanced playout platform Vipe, today announced a new Service Provider Partner agreement with NPC Media, the Australian managed p...
02/12/2025
DPA Microphones today announces the immediate availability of its new N-Series Digital Wireless Microphone System for customers throughout the U.S. In addition ...
02/12/2025
Hiltron Communications reports a well attended and successful Space Tech Expo exhibition, held at the Messe Bremen from Tuesday November 18 through Thursday Nov...
02/12/2025
The beginning of September saw Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust, in association with Channel 9 and Triple M, kick off the 2025 Brisbane Festival in spec...
02/12/2025
SGM Lighting is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with ACT Entertainment, under which ACT will serve as the exclusive distributor for SGM's ne...
02/12/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Telia, the second largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's i...
02/12/2025
European cloud data protection specialist Keepit is expanding its sales network in the DACH region and has gained TIM AG, one of the leading value-added distrib...
02/12/2025
Featured products at ISE 2026
This year s ISE 2026 theme "Push Beyond" reflects Calrec s direction of travel. The company is dedicated to supporting the AV an...
02/12/2025
Czech Television, the national public broadcaster, has deployed one of the largest LiveU live production projects in the region for live sports and news coverag...
02/12/2025
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, has announced the release of v8.2 software for its ZEN and ZEN-W Series, bringing advanced cinematic camera se...
02/12/2025
Global provider of video streaming software and services, Accedo, and OTT platform provider, Magine Pro, have signed a binding agreement to carve out and merge ...
02/12/2025
With proven success in broadcast, OTT, and content supply chains, K.S Avinash set to scale Skandha's service-first approach across APAC
Skandha Media Servi...
02/12/2025
AJA Video Systems has joined the RAVENNA community, a network of partners devoted to advancing the RAVENNA standard for distributing real-time audio over intern...
02/12/2025
HUNT VALLEY, Md. Sinclair and its wholly-owned subsidiary One Media Technologies have released a new report focused on how ATSC 3.0, the IP-based NextGen TV sta...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee have elected four industry veterans to three-year terms on the organization's board of direc...
02/12/2025
A new survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan highlights how important social media is for younger consumers, with Gen Z spending 5.1 hours a day on so...
02/12/2025
Faculty Notes: Fall/Winter 2025 Recent accomplishments, releases, and events by Berklee faculty.
December 1, 2025
By
Editorial Staff
The cast of Kind of M...
02/12/2025
Ring In The Holidays With Our Biggest Sale Ever On Ivory II Pianos!From now until December 31st, you can save 50% or more on every Ivory II piano and collection...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Made in America: How Stranger Things' Electrified the US Economy
Entertainment
02 December 2025
GlobalUnited States
Link copied to cl...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Culinary Class Wars' Season 2 Trailer Teases New Rules, R...
02/12/2025
At AWS re:Invent, NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services expanded their strategic collab...
01/12/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
01/12/2025
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The crew, from left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Vic...
01/12/2025
IRVINE, Calif. Wooden Camera has introduced its new Accessory Collection for the Canon EOS C50. The new lineup includes a low-profile, gimbal-ready cage, expand...
01/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for its Dec. 18 Open Commission Meeting that will include a vote on a report an...
01/12/2025
In most years, a graph of annual local TV ad spending is about as predictable as an electrocardiogram of a reasonably healthy patient in a doctor's office. ...
01/12/2025
Many industries have seen big-ticket hardware turn into software. Switchers, though, demand a combination of real-time performance and sheer bandwidth that has ...
01/12/2025
GENEVA Shanghai will host the next quadrennial Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-27) and World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-27), Oct. 11-Nov. 12, 2027. This...
01/12/2025
NEW YORK Just in time for Giving Tuesday tomorrow (Dec. 2), the Broadcasters Foundation of America is seeking out donations to help television and radio industr...
01/12/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Net Insight CEO Crister Fritzson has informed the company's board that he will retire from the video transport and media cloud technology ...
01/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils Hilarious, Heartwarming Trailer for Upcoming F...
01/12/2025
Back to All News
A Down to Earth, All Too Relatable Hero: Cashero' Teaser ...
Ratings Roundup: MLS Is Back Notches Big Opener; NBC Scores With NASCAR-IndyCar Doubleheader By SVG Staff 
