Viewership woes continue for the NASCAR Cup Series.
Sunday’s Cup Series race at Martinsville averaged 1.99 million viewers on NBC. That figure is down 15% from last year’s race (2.35 million) and, more notably, marks the least-watched non-delayed NASCAR Cup Series race ever to air on broadcast television.
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This comes after an increase in viewership for the Cup Series last week at Talladega, albeit a modest 1%, when the series averaged 2.58 million viewers on NBC compared to 2.56 million in 2025.
Prior to Talladega, Phoenix averaged just 1.29 million viewers, down 24% year-over-year. That figure practically matched the least-watched non-delayed NASCAR Cup Series race on record, with 1.29 million viewers also tuning in for the 2025 New Hampshire race.
Through nine races, five Chase events have recorded year-over-year viewership increases, while four have seen declines. However, multiple double-digit drops among those four races have outweighed the gains, leading to the postseason’s overall decline in viewership.
Heading into Sunday’s season finale at Homestead-Miami, The Chase is averaging 1.71 million viewers through nine races, down 3% from the same point last year (1.77 million), which was previously the least-watched postseason on record for the series.
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At an average of 1.71 million viewers through nine races, Sunday’s season finale at Homestead would need to average approximately 3.24 million viewers for this year’s postseason to match last year’s 1.87 million average. That would also require the highest-viewed NASCAR Cup Series season finale since 2019. Anything higher would put the 2026 Chase ahead of last year’s postseason.
There were hopes that NASCAR’s reintroduction of The Chase would provide a postseason viewership boost, but that has not proven to be the case during the format’s first season back.
Beyond the performance of The Chase itself, NASCAR’s continued reliance on cable television, coupled with the constant changing of races between networks throughout the season, remains an increasingly frustrating issue for fans and media observers.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
