Due to weather delays, the Daytona 500 was pushed to Monday night in primetime. And thanks to some compelling racing, the Great American Race on Fox received a decent number. According to Nielsen, the overnight rating for the Daytona 500 was a 7.7, down from last year’s race which ran in its regularly scheduled Sunday afternoon time slot as Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand tweets:
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/statuses/174527603036790784″]
While the rating was down 6% from last year, the race peaked at a 9.2 right when all hell broke loose when Juan Pablo Montoya’s car crashed into a jet-fueled blow drying truck and caused an explosion on the track.
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/statuses/174528471773626368″]
Austin Karp at SBJ points out that Daytona still could not overcome NBC’s Monday night powerhouse “The Voice.”
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/AustinKarp/statuses/174528085180424192″]
But even during the delay when Fox vamped until racing resumed after midnight on the East Coast, the rating was good.
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/statuses/174529270939516928″]
Will this lead to Monday night NASCAR races or perhaps a Sunday primetime Daytona 500? Maybe not, but it’s definitely food for thought for NASCAR and its TV partners as the next rights negotiations get underway this year.
