The only US based race of the season so far got 2.6m viewers on ABC. That's a much more apples to apples comparison than the average telecast which is on cable at 9:00 AM ET.
NASCAR had more viewers than track on Sunday 7/24- 2.59 million people watched the race in Pocono on USA.
Can we stop this nonsense about how Netflix has made F1 super popular? Prior to Worlds, Weldon told me that he expected track to garner a better tv rating than F1 and to promote it when it came true. So here we go.
From the Times of London:
“Sunday afternoon’s coverage of the championships on NBC averaged 2.235 million TV-only viewers, making it the most-watched track and field event on the network in 18 years, excluding the Olympics and US team trials,” the statement added. That was a rise of 192 per cent on the 2019 World Championships in Doha....
On ESPN, Formula One races attract about 1.5 million viewers, while the figure for this year’s Wimbledon tennis finals on ABC was just under two million.
Netflix has made Formula 1 much more popular in the US. You are also comparing cable television viewership (ESPN) to NBC which is free to watch. I watch Formula 1 and don't want to spend the money to have cable tv so I subscribe to Formula 1 TV and I imagine that is true of a lot of its viewership in the states. Its difficult to know what is or is not more popular purely off that single metric. The Miami Grand Prix had 242,955 fans in attendance over the three day race weekend, worlds had 54,000 in its first three days so based on that track and field is hugely less popular. It is good to hear that track and field is getting good viewership numbers but taking that single viewership number and declaring Formula 1 in the US overrated is kind of silly.
Can we stop this nonsense about how Netflix has made F1 super popular? Prior to Worlds, Weldon told me that he expected track to garner a better tv rating than F1 and to promote it when it came true. So here we go.
From the Times of London:
“Sunday afternoon’s coverage of the championships on NBC averaged 2.235 million TV-only viewers, making it the most-watched track and field event on the network in 18 years, excluding the Olympics and US team trials,” the statement added. That was a rise of 192 per cent on the 2019 World Championships in Doha....
On ESPN, Formula One races attract about 1.5 million viewers, while the figure for this year’s Wimbledon tennis finals on ABC was just under two million.
What a stupid comparison, that was the French Grand Prix and of course Americans don't care. The US Grand Prix is October 23, 2022 in Austin. Bookmark this and come back on October 24th and tell me how many in the US watched and even more importantly, how many attended. I guarantee it will blow your pea brain.
Also the French gp was on at 8am central time us and that race is typically not a good one. There's a reason it probably won't show up on the circuit next year. As an F1 fan over the last few years and track and field since I was in hs (I was out last week for the races) its not surprising to hear it had bad ratings. The race was boring and got bad reviews for a gp weekend.
You know track is in a bad spot when you are trying to compare prime time world championship coverage on nbc to a single European auto race on a bad track broadcasted at 9am on cable.
Can we stop this nonsense about how Netflix has made F1 super popular? Prior to Worlds, Weldon told me that he expected track to garner a better tv rating than F1 and to promote it when it came true. So here we go.
From the Times of London:
“Sunday afternoon’s coverage of the championships on NBC averaged 2.235 million TV-only viewers, making it the most-watched track and field event on the network in 18 years, excluding the Olympics and US team trials,” the statement added. That was a rise of 192 per cent on the 2019 World Championships in Doha....
On ESPN, Formula One races attract about 1.5 million viewers, while the figure for this year’s Wimbledon tennis finals on ABC was just under two million.
Also the streaming numbers would be interesting to know. A core group of track fans watches zero track on NBC. Unfortunately, NBC has a stranglehold on the US rights because if ESPN/ABC had it I guarantee you these ratings would be much better. They know how to do shoulder programming and hype (and have a bunch of former athletes who will bring up track) as well as social media way better than NBC. You can see hockey for an example of this. NBC does Sunday Night Football well and that's really about it.
Pretty standard hype machine / click bait opinion from Let's Run... F1 has standard race at Paul Ricard, one of 23-24 stops for the year... and you're comparing it to the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, biggest meet other than the Olympics.
It's definitely cool that Track got a good deal of viewership... don't get me wrong... but let's not triple jump to any conclusions.
I'd be curios if a show around following specific athletes throughout a track season would be interesting, my guess is that it's too individualized. F1 has politics, technology, team mates, rivalries, team legacy... it's just more interesting due to the dynamics of it all... Same with a show like "Sunderland Till I die"... how do you do that for Track... not quite sure the sport is set up for it.
Can we stop this nonsense about how Netflix has made F1 super popular? Prior to Worlds, Weldon told me that he expected track to garner a better tv rating than F1 and to promote it when it came true. So here we go.
From the Times of London:
“Sunday afternoon’s coverage of the championships on NBC averaged 2.235 million TV-only viewers, making it the most-watched track and field event on the network in 18 years, excluding the Olympics and US team trials,” the statement added. That was a rise of 192 per cent on the 2019 World Championships in Doha....
On ESPN, Formula One races attract about 1.5 million viewers, while the figure for this year’s Wimbledon tennis finals on ABC was just under two million.
The world champs were primetime. F1 is often at odd hours for US viewers. There are 26 races in a F1 season vs 9 nights of track.
I'm curios if the viewers count recordings. Because a lot of F1 fans, myself included, record the races to watch at a more ideal time. Also a lot of F1 fans pay to subscriptions to watch F1 similar to NFL sunday ticket. No one pays for track.
Can we stop this nonsense about how Netflix has made F1 super popular? Prior to Worlds, Weldon told me that he expected track to garner a better tv rating than F1 and to promote it when it came true. So here we go.
From the Times of London:
“Sunday afternoon’s coverage of the championships on NBC averaged 2.235 million TV-only viewers, making it the most-watched track and field event on the network in 18 years, excluding the Olympics and US team trials,” the statement added. That was a rise of 192 per cent on the 2019 World Championships in Doha....
On ESPN, Formula One races attract about 1.5 million viewers, while the figure for this year’s Wimbledon tennis finals on ABC was just under two million.
Love the way you delete the comment saying your comparison is stupid. A little sensitive huh? I'll say it again, this is stupid, the French GP doesn't compare to the World Athletic Championships. The US Grand Prix doesn't even compare in scope, yet I'll bet you any amount of money that it will get more viewers on American television than any day of Worlds and will have a higher attendance than all 10 days of Worlds combined. October 23, 2022, bookmark it and stop being a pansy and deleting comments.
A couple of comments from my non-track friends who ended up watching some of the meet:
One friend heard about the "NFL guy" false starting and then watched a bit. She also has heard about and seen Noah Lyles and thinks he's hilarious (in a good way, I think).
Another heard about how well Team USA was doing and decided to tune in.
same with some non track friends I know. They are starting to familarize themselves with Noah Lyles the way they knew who Bolt(and one of them knew Hicham El Guerrouj) and obviously they watched the day Devon Allen false started. They liked watching Jakob, the jamaicans and the relays as well
Can we stop this nonsense about how Netflix has made F1 super popular? Prior to Worlds, Weldon told me that he expected track to garner a better tv rating than F1 and to promote it when it came true. So here we go.
From the Times of London:
“Sunday afternoon’s coverage of the championships on NBC averaged 2.235 million TV-only viewers, making it the most-watched track and field event on the network in 18 years, excluding the Olympics and US team trials,” the statement added. That was a rise of 192 per cent on the 2019 World Championships in Doha....
On ESPN, Formula One races attract about 1.5 million viewers, while the figure for this year’s Wimbledon tennis finals on ABC was just under two million.
Love the way you delete the comment saying your comparison is stupid. A little sensitive huh? I'll say it again, this is stupid, the French GP doesn't compare to the World Athletic Championships. The US Grand Prix doesn't even compare in scope, yet I'll bet you any amount of money that it will get more viewers on American television than any day of Worlds and will have a higher attendance than all 10 days of Worlds combined. October 23, 2022, bookmark it and stop being a pansy and deleting comments.
Hey ROJO;
As I stated, comparing the French GP to the World Championships was stupid. An event in France that's broadcast on a cable channel that costs money to get is a ridiculous (aka STUPID) comparison to a USA based event broadcast on a completely free channel.
The US Grand Prix yesterday in Austin and broadcast on ABC, had an attendance of 440,000 Friday to Sunday (3 days) which destroys the Eugene attendance for Worlds, just as I said it would. I haven't seen the TV ratings yet, but I guarantee the Sunday afternoon race will have more than 2.235M TV viewers.
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