{"id":778982,"date":"2026-07-04T03:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T03:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/778982\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T03:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T03:23:10","slug":"nascar-big-data-lift-reverses-in-return-to-linear-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/778982\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR &#8220;Big Data&#8221; lift reverses in return to linear television"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In its return to linear television, NASCAR\u2019s recent \u201cBig Data\u201d lift went in reverse.<\/p>\n<p>Last weekend\u2019s NASCAR Cup Series race from Sonoma (Ca.) averaged 1.8 million viewers on TNT and truTV, per the Nielsen \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d methodology that is now official currency, but 1.9 million per the old panel-only metric that NASCAR is publicizing for its races \u2014 marking the first time since the previous race on linear television in May that the \u201cBig Data\u201d figure trailed its panel-only equivalent.<\/p>\n<p>For the five intervening races, all of which aired on streaming service Prime Video, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmediawatch.com\/2026\/06\/nascar-viewership-prime-video-increase\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cBig Data\u201d outpaced \u2018panel only\u2019 by an average of 15% (2.3 to 2.0 million)<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The Prime Video races may prove to be the exception to the rule, as Nielsen\u2019s shift to \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d has not otherwise provided any meaningful benefit to NASCAR viewership. \u201cBig Data\u201d trailed panel-only during the Fox Sports portion of the season (3.4 to 3.34 million), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmediawatch.com\/2026\/05\/nascar-ratings-change-big-data-to-panel-only\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">at which point NASCAR stopped reporting the those numbers and began publicizing its viewership using the old standard<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Last season, \u201cBig Data\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmediawatch.com\/2025\/11\/the-needle-nascar-viewership-decline-year-one-rights-deal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">provided only a negligible 0.08% lift<\/a> at a time when other leagues were experiencing more pronounced increases.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d integrates data from smart TVs, set-top boxes and select providers\u2019 first-party data (including Amazon) with the traditional Nielsen panel. The new methodology \u2014 which rolled out last September \u2014 has generally lifted sports viewership, but NASCAR is among the exceptions. There is no definitive explanation as to why NASCAR viewership on linear television would be disadvantaged under \u201cBig Data.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the methodology, last week\u2019s race increased double-digits from last year\u2019s TNT Sports opener \u2014 a weather-delayed Saturday night race from Atlanta \u2014 rising 10% under \u201cBig Data\u201d and 19% under panel-only. The audience peaked during the 6:15 PM ET quarter-hour at 2.2 million under \u201cBig Data\u201d and 2.5 million under panel-only. Note that the race faced competition from the FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>The corresponding Xfinity Series race averaged a panel-only audience of 1.1 million on CW, up 18% from last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In its return to linear television, NASCAR\u2019s recent \u201cBig Data\u201d lift went in reverse. Last weekend\u2019s NASCAR Cup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,126078,90795,82],"class_list":["post-778982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-on-tnt","tag-nascar-ratings","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}