Vegas to Reno and AMA Motocross TV Ratings From Weekend of 8/9

This week we’ll stick with just the simple weekend TV ratings from Network TV.  For the purposes of our conversation we’ll define Network TV as those stations most commonly broadcasting an “over the air” signal—signals you can pick up for free with a pair of “rabbit ears” (this would most commonly be your local NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox stations).  The weekend of 8/9 and 8/10 saw two “offroad” motorsports broadcasts, both on NBC.

The first of these was the Saturday, 8/8 live broadcast of the 450 Moto2 from 3-4PM Eastern at the Red Bull Unadilla National in New Berlin, NY.  Trey Canard and his Muscle Milk Honda would follow up his 4^th place Moto1 result by taking the Moto2 win followed by Moto1 winner Ryan Dungey.  The hour long broadcast produced a 0.3 rating which equates to an estimated 347,000 households tuning in to watch.  If you figure that a few of these households had more than one individual watching the program (say 1 in 10) then you end up with about 380,000 people were exposed during this time frame to the sport in general and to the advertisers (Red Bull and Lucas Oil were foremost amongst these) in particular.  As a point of contrast, during this same time period, ABC was broadcasting the NASCAR Nationwide event a stone’s throw away in NY over at Watkins Glenn, obtaining a 1.2 rating.

Sunday 8/9 would bring another offroad event on NBC.  This time, its broadcast wasn’t so clear to the casual observer.  If you looked at your available TV programs on Sunday you would have seen the “World of Adventure Sports presented by GoPro” on NBC from 3-4 PM Eastern.  Great, but I’m busy revalving my shocks or watching the final round of the PGA Championship over on CBS you say.  Well, then you would have missed some sweet HD coverage of the 2013 Vegas to Reno BITD race.  Won by Jason Voss in Trick Trucks and CJ Hutchins in the 1500 class, the coverage here would not be for the full hour as within this program was also coverage of other non-motorsports events such as a marathon on Mt. Blanc in France and downhill mountain biking.  Still, the program did generate a 0.4 rating, reflecting about 462,000 households tuning in with about 508,000 viewers.  When you consider that this broadcast was competing directly against the culminating hours of the PGA Championship (6.0 rating) and the NASCAR Sprint Cup race on ESPN (3.1 rating) it’s really quite decent.

Both of these broadcasts are well within what I would consider the “norm” for offroad motorsports ratings on Network TV over the past few years—though the Unadilla motocross event is on the very low end of what Moto/Supercross typically generates. 

TELECAST	DATE	NET	TIME (ET)	RATING
NASCAR Nationwide Series: Zippo 200 at The Glen	8/9	ABC	2:15-5:00pm	1.2
"ESPN Sports Saturday"	8/9	ABC	5:00-6:00pm	0.7
Major League Fishing: Summit Cup Championship	8/9	CBS	1:00-2:00pm	0.5
PGA Championship: Third Round	8/9	CBS	2:00-7:15pm	3.2
AMA Motocross	8/9	NBC	3:00-4:00pm	0.3
U.S. Swimming National Championships	8/9	NBC	4:00-6:00pm	0.5
World of X Games: Games of Skate	8/10	ABC	5:00-6:00pm	0.4
PGA Championship: rain delay coverage	8/10	CBS	2:00-3:00pm	2.0
PGA Championship: Final Round	8/10	CBS	3:00-9:00pm	6.0
Ironman World Championship	8/10	NBC	1:30-3:00pm	0.6
World of Adventure Sports	8/10	NBC	3:00-4:00pm	0.4
U.S. Swimming National Championships	8/10	NBC	4:00-5:30pm	0.5