{"id":835885,"date":"2026-07-30T12:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/835885\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T12:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:48:13","slug":"tnt-nascar-viewership-mixed-depending-on-methodology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/835885\/","title":{"rendered":"TNT NASCAR viewership mixed depending on methodology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NASCAR viewership continues to take a \u201cBig Data\u201d hit on linear TV, with the TNT portion of the season down slightly under the new methodology \u2014 and up slightly under the old.<\/p>\n<p>The five NASCAR Cup Series races on TNT Sports averaged 2.0 million viewers per the Nielsen \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d data that is the official currency, down slightly from a year ago, but 2.1 million per the prior \u2018panel-only\u2019 methodology that NASCAR is now publicizing for its races \u2014 up 4%.<\/p>\n<p>Both of the linear NASCAR packages this season \u2014 on Fox Sports and TNT Sports \u2014 posted slightly fewer viewers on a \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d basis than under the panel-only metric. By comparison, the streaming-exclusive portion of the season on Prime Video <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmediawatch.com\/2026\/06\/nascar-viewership-prime-video-increase\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">averaged a 15% larger audience under \u201cBig Data\u201d than panel-only<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>NASCAR <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmediawatch.com\/2026\/05\/nascar-ratings-change-big-data-to-panel-only\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">chose to stop reporting \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d figures for its races<\/a> after the Fox Sports portion of the season, returning to the old panel-only metric, but \u201cBig Data\u201d remains the official currency and is still reported by the series\u2019 partners. With the noted exception of the Prime Video portion of the season, NASCAR has not benefited from the shift to \u201cBig Data\u201d \u2014 making it an outlier among sports properties.<\/p>\n<p>The most-watched of the five TNT races was North Wilkesboro on July 19, the first Cup Series points race at the venue since 1996, which averaged a 1.3 and 2.45 million under both \u201cBig Data\u201d (2.447M) and panel-only (2.452M). In both metrics, it was the most-watched Cup Series race since the Coca-Cola 600 on Prime Video in May.<\/p>\n<p>This past weekend\u2019s Brickyard 400 averaged a 1.3 and 2.37 million under \u201cBig Data\u201d and a 1.3 and 2.38 million under panel only, in both measures the smallest audience on record for the race (dates back to 1994).<\/p>\n<p>As was the case last year, TNT\u2019s average was impacted by a rain-delayed race from Atlanta. That race, which was delayed three hours and finished at nearly 2 AM ET, was the least-watched of the five with 1.47 million (\u201cBig Data\u201d) and 1.57 million (panel-only).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR viewership continues to take a \u201cBig Data\u201d hit on linear TV, with the TNT portion of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,126078,90795,82],"class_list":["post-835885","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\/835885","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=835885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}