Ratings for Mint 400 on NBC 7/12

The Martelli Bros. produced Mint 400 race has now become an annual TV production on NBC.  Its not quite as good (OK, not nearly as good) as watching the event live but it sure beats bass fishing or Bar Rescue reruns.

This year the event which was broadcast on Sunday 7/12 for a total of two action packed hours grabbed a 0.5 rating.  So approximately 0.5% of all the 115.6 million TV households in the country were tuned into the race--though this 115.6 number is an old one from the '13-'14 TV season, the number of TV households in the US likely went up between '13-'14 and '14-'15 so this figure is underestimated if anything.

Based on this year old estimate of US TV households, there were some 578,000 TV owning households tuned into the event.  Figuring 1.1 viewers per household that would put some 636,000 pairs of eyeballs on the 2015 Mint 400.

For comparison, the TV show that came on following the Mint was a broadcast regarding Pastrana's Nitro Circus and grabbed a 0.6 rating.  At the same time over on Fox you had the women's US Open golf tournament which had a 0.7 rating

Of note is that last year's Mint 400 race had a 0.4 rating meaning that '15's ratings were a 25% increase.  Hard to attribute ratings increases in such a small sample size to much but at least it is moving in the right direction.

9/27-9/28 Weekend GRC Ratings

While this most recent weekend's TV ratings for the GRC weren't as high as they were the prior weekend, they'd didn't fall too much.  Still, I was hoping for better given the 0.5 rating the prior weekend and the in show advertising they did for this weekend's show.  Additionally the race at the Dirt Fish Rally School was much closer to what I think Rallycross events should be--primarily dirt vs. primarily tarmac with the cool section coming through the old wood mill as an added bonus and character.  This was by far the coolest venue for the series this year.

Results wise it was Sverre Isachsen (Subaru), Joni Wiman (Ford) and part timer Brian Deegan (Ford) in third.  While the manufacturers title in GRC has long been awarded to Ford, the driver championship has bounced back and forth and now Mr. Wiman is now in the lead with his Olsbergs MSE Ford (Huntington, CA based).

This weekend's 0.4 rating equates to some 463,000 households and some 510,000 viewers.

NFL: Eagles-49ers (88%)	9/28	Fox	4:25-7:30pm	16.7
"Sunday Night Football": Saints-Cowboys	9/28	NBC	8:30-11:00pm	13.7
NFL: (regional)	9/28	Fox	1:00-4:15pm	10.1
NFL: (singleheader)	9/28	CBS	1:00-4:05pm	8.2
"Football Night in America"	9/28	NBC	7:30-8:15pm	4.4
College Football: (regional)	9/27	ABC	3:30-7:30pm	4.0
"Fox NFL Sunday"	9/28	Fox	12:00-1:00pm	3.4
College Football: Notre Dame-Syracuse	9/27	ABC	8:00pm-12:00am	2.8
College Football: Arkansas-Texas A&M	9/27	CBS	3:30-7:30pm	2.8
"The NFL Today"	9/28	CBS	12:00-1:00pm	2.3
Ryder Cup: Day 3	9/28	NBC	7:00am-1:00pm	1.8
Ryder Cup: Day 2	9/27	NBC	3:00am-1:00pm	1.7
PBR: Kawasaki Strong Battle at the Bay	9/28	CBS	5:00-6:00pm	1.5
College Football: Stanford-Washington	9/27	Fox	4:15-7:45pm	1.2
Ryder Cup: Day 2 (taped)	9/27	NBC	1:00-6:00pm	1.1
MLB: Yankees-Red Sox	9/27	Fox	1:00-4:15pm	1.0
"College Football Countdown"	9/27	ABC	3:00-3:30pm	0.9
College Football: Baylor-Iowa State	9/27	Fox	8:15pm-12:00am	0.9
"College Football Today"	9/27	CBS	3:00-3:30pm	0.7
"College Football Socreboard"	9/27	ABC	2:00-3:00pm	0.6
STIHL Timbersports Series	9/28	ABC	5:00-6:00pm	0.6
"College Football's Open Season"	9/27	CBS	2:30-3:00pm	0.4
"World of X Games: Adaptive Action"	9/28	ABC	4:00-5:00pm	0.4
Global Rallycross: Seattle	9/28	NBC	4:30-6:00pm	0.4
"College Football's Open Season"	9/27	CBS	2:00-2:30pm	0.3
"Red Bull Joyride"	9/28	NBC	3:00-4:30pm	0.3

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9/20-9/21 LOORRS and GRC Weekend TV Ratings

Lots of good offroad motorsports events on Network TV this past weekend. NBC had two "live" GRC broadcasts from Los Angles where the results were Scott Speed (VW), Wiman (Ford), Block (Ford) on Day I and Rhys Millen (Hyundai), Block (Ford) and Wiman (Ford) on Day II. CBS meanwhile had a LOORRS broadcast of the Pro 2 and Pro 4 races from the Wild West Motorsports Park in Sparks, NV.

The Saturday broadcasts had an easier time of it only having to compete against a smattering of fairly uninteresting college games while the Sunday GRC show had to face off against the NFL. True to form the Saturday LOORRS and GRC shows pulled significantly higher ratings at a 0.5 for each (578,000 households and about 636,000 people viewing)than the Sunday GRC event that only generated a 0.3 rating (347,000 households and about 381,000 people viewing). Of note is that the weekend's NASCAR event from NH on Sunday saw a 2.2 rating (3.1 million viewers) and the Tudor United Sports Car Championship event at Circuit of the America's drew a 0.9 rating (1.1 million viewers), both running against the NFL.

From a historical perspective the 0.5 ratings for LOORRS and GRC on Saturday represent recent highs for both series and solid improvements from recent shows. The result is not however outside the "norm" for either series and can be considered a good but not spectacular result and at least the Sunday GRC broadcast beat out the European cycling event and canned golf preview show!!

TELECAST DATE NET TIME (ET) RATING
NFL: Broncos-Seahawks (89%) 9/21 CBS 4:25-7:30pm 16.9
"Sunday Night Football": Steelers-Panthers 9/21 NBC 8:30-11:30pm 12.3
NFL: (singleheader) 9/21 Fox 1:00-4:05pm 12.2
NFL: (regional) 9/21 CBS 1:00-4:25pm 11.1
College Football: Florida-Alabama 9/20 CBS 3:30-7:00pm 5.1
College Football: Clemson-Florida State 9/20 ABC 8:00-11:30pm 4.9
"Football Night in America" 9/21 NBC 7:30-8:15pm 3.3
"Fox NFL Sunday" 9/21 Fox 12:00-1:00pm 3.2
"The NFL Today" 9/21 CBS 12:00-1:00pm 2.9
College Football: Oklahoma-West Virginia 9/20 Fox 7:30-11:30pm 1.9
College Football: (regional) 9/20 ABC 3:30-7:00pm 1.7
MLB: (regional) 9/20 Fox 1:00-4:45pm 1.5
"College Football Today" 9/20 CBS 3:00-3:30pm 1.2
Tudor United SportsCar Championship:
Lone Star Le Mans (COTA) 9/21 Fox 5:00-6:00pm 0.9
PBR: Cooper Tires Desert Showdown 9/20 CBS 2:00-3:00pm 0.7
EPL: West Ham-Liverpool 9/20 NBC 12:30-2:30pm 0.7
Boxing: Fight Night 9/20 NBC 3:00-5:00pm 0.6
"World of X Games: Best of Austin" 9/20 ABC 2:00-3:30pm 0.5
Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series 9/20 CBS 1:00-2:00pm 0.5
"Premier League Goal Zone" 9/20 NBC 2:30-3:00pm 0.5
Global Rallycross 9/20 NBC 5:00-6:00pm 0.5
STIHL Timbersports Series 9/21 ABC 5:00-7:00pm 0.5
Diamond League Track & Field 9/21 NBC 2:00-3:00pm 0.4
"World of X Games: Big Wave Hellmen Preview" 9/21 ABC 4:00-5:00pm 0.3
Women's Rugby World Cup 9/21 NBC 3:00-4:00pm 0.3
Global Rallycross 9/21 NBC 5:00-6:00pm 0.3
"Road to the Ryder Cup" 9/21 NBC 1:30-2:00pm 0.2
Cycling: Vuelta a España 9/21 NBC 4:00-5:00pm 0.2
.

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

Global RallyCross and Offroad Motorsports Ratings for 8/2/14 & 8/3/14

Though there are some positives to take away from this past weekend's GRC broadcast rating, the bottom line is that it reinforces its status as a marginal TV product for prime sports viewing hours.

Admittedly, this past Sunday's show was not a live race, nor even a tape delayed one.  Instead it was a recap of the first five events of the season packaged into a neat hour and a half, edited down format.
On network TV it was competing directly against golf over on CBS.  Most concerning here is its ratings within the middle of NBC's motorsports/Red Bull oriented shows with a Mecum auto auction related and a Red Bull sponsored multi-sport adventure in Patagonia programs preceding GRC and brief show on Kurt Busch's attempt at the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 double coming after.

The GRC broadcast failed to hold the lead-in 0.4 ratings of a car auction or cross country trek and failed to support the 0.5 rating of the KB program.  Given NBC already had a full hour of the KB special in the tank (they would broadcast it the following day on NBCSN) they probly are kicking themselves for not running a full hour or more of that and cutting back on the GRC broadcast--though this is likely mitigated by the money Red Bull paid NBC for the airtime, perhaps Red Bull paid NBC more for the airtime than NBC could have sold the advertising space for on an extended KB show...perhaps.

On the positive side...the in house produced World of X Games surfing event and MLS soccer game on NBC both also saw 0.3 ratings so Red Bull can at least say--Hey, we'll pay you to put on our broadcast which will likely grab the same ratings as these other programs that YOU have to pay to produce.

So the 8/3 GRC broadcast saw some 347,000 households watching with an estimated 381,500 actual viewers.  Ratings for GRC's broadcasts for the year now are as follows:

5/24--0.4
6/22--0.3
7/20--0.5
7/26--0.3
8/3--0.3

TELECAST	DATE	NET	TIME (ET)	RATING
World of X Games: ASP Surfing	8/2	ABC	3:00-4:00pm	0.3
"ESPN Sports Saturday"	8/2	ABC	4:00-6:00pm	0.5
"PGA Tour 2014: Playing With A Purpose"	8/2	CBS	1:00-2:00pm	0.5
WGC-Bridgestone Invitational: Third Round	8/2	CBS	2:00-6:00pm	1.9
MLS: Galaxy-Timbers	8/2	NBC	3:00-5:00pm	0.3
Breeders' Cup Challenge: Whitney Handicap	8/2	NBC	5:00-6:30pm	0.6
Guinness Int'l Champions Cup: Manchester United-Real Madrid	8/2	Fox	4:00-6:00pm	0.6
"PGA Championship Preview: This Is Major"	8/3	CBS	1:00-2:00pm	0.6
WGC-Bridgestone Invitational: Final Round	8/3	CBS	2:00-6:00pm	3.1
Mecum Dealmakers	8/3	NBC	2:00-3:00pm	0.4
"Red Bull: Project Acheron: Patagonia"	8/3	NBC	3:00-4:00pm	0.4
"Global Rallycross: Season Review"	8/3	NBC	4:00-5:30pm	0.3
"Kurt Busch 36"	8/3	NBC	5:30-6:00pm	0.5
Pro Football HOF Game: Giants-Bills	8/3	NBC	8:15-11:00pm	5.8

Down Weekend for Offroad Motorsports on Network TV...

Well, that's not progress...

Global Rallycross has not generated any appreciable growth over the course of '14 and has actually regressed in terms of ratings over the past two events and LOORRS has continued its regular broadcasts on CBS but its ratings have stayed flat to marginally down over the past two years.

Now I'm not on the inside of the companies paying for these events to be broadcast on Network TV so in truth I really have NO IDEA whether perhaps even at the current ratings levels that their producers are happy.  It is certainly a possibility that NBC and CBS sell their airtime to Lucas and GRC at a low enough level that they can sell their advertising spots at a rate for them to turn a profit...maybe.

What I can tell you is that I've been tracking these ratings on a general basis for a number of years now, dating back to the old CORR days.  While its been great to see offroad motorsports (primarily short course) appear on network TV on a regular basis over the past few years, the ratings generated from it have not moved.  We now regularly see short course, Baja events, rallycross, stage rally, motocross, Best in the Desert and more on Network and near network (see NBCSN, CBS Sports, etc.) sources yet the broadcasts most accessible to the America public (the over the air broadcasts) have stagnated in terms of ratings/viewers.  There is a core audience here and these broadcasts are reaching this audience but they aren't bringing in a growing audience of viewers.  You can debate the reasons but the facts by now are fairly clear.

There is a lot to be said for the inconsistency and "random" nature of these broadcasts.  If you are a NASCAR fan you KNOW that pretty much every weekend there is a race (which is often EVERY weekend) you can sit down around 1PM Eastern and catch the race.  If you are a football fan (college or NFL) you KNOW that every Saturday or Sunday the games will be on during the season.  For offroad motorsports??  Well, there you can look up the schedule on any one of a dozen or more websites for the various series and see if the event is shown on a Saturday or a Sunday, early afternoon, late afternoon or if it will be another month before another broadcast is available (often the case), is it on CBS?  CBS Sports?  MavTV?  Do I get MavTV?.  This is just the nature of the beast with offroad racing at this point.  Its not NASCAR with live events taking place every weekend at the same time on the same channel and thus it has an uphill battle to to fight just in terms of getting casual viewers to watch.

For this past weekend, GRC saw a 0.3 rating on NBC which tied for the weekend's lowest rated sporting event on Network TV with the LOORRS which it faced off directly against in the same time slot over on CBS from 2-3PM Eastern.  Perhaps you could make the argument that either show's ratings would have been higher if they hadn't been facing off against one another and instead were competing for viewers against say...gymnastics or golf or the like.  Certainly I've made a case here before of combining the audiences of offroad motorsports that are shown at the same time, so I'll do so here again for the sake of positivity.  During this time period there was a combined 0.6 rating for offroad motorsports on Network TV equating to some 694,000 households and 763,000 people watching offroad racing of some kind during this period.  Now this doesn't help the advertisers who paid only to be on one broadcast or the other and got their message in front of "only" about 350,000 households and 382,000 people during this time.

The NBC broadcast of the Red Bull Hare Scramble which followed the GRC broadcast beat out both of the "car" oriented race shows with a 0.4 rating grabbing about 460,000 households and 510,000 viewers.  This holds true to another long term trend that I've noticed--whether its motocross, supercross or various Red Bull motorcycle events, they do usually out-rate the offroad "car" racing.  I would have a tendency to attribute that to the larger fan/participation rate of motorcycle racing.  While an extreme minority of people have ever driven in a SCORE, BITD, or Rally event of any kind you can show up in nearly any geographic region in the country on any weekend and find a number of motocross tracks, hare scrambles, trail rides, etc.  The sheer participation rate of offroad motorcycle riders dwarfs that of any combination of desert/shortcourse/rally drivers by what has to be many magnitudes and thus its a lot easier to find an individual who is familiar with jumping their motorcycle through the woods or over a tabletop, flipping through the channels and staying with one of these shows than it is short course, desert or rally.  That said, these motorcycle event ratings are never MASSIVELY better than these other offroad broadcasts...just marginally better...

TELECAST	DATE	NET	TIME (ET)	RATING
"World of X Games: Women of Action"	7/26	ABC	3:00-4:00pm	0.3
"ESPN Sports Saturday"	7/26	ABC	4:00-6:00pm	0.5
Lucas Oil Off Road Racing	7/26	CBS	2:00-3:00pm	0.3
PGA Tour: RBC Canadian Open: Third Round	7/26	CBS	3:00-6:00pm	0.4
Guinness Int'l Champions Cup: Manchester United-AS Roma	7/26	Fox	4:00-6:00pm	0.5
"UFC on Fox 12": Prelims	7/26	Fox	6:00-8:00pm	0.8
"UFC on Fox 12": Robbie Lawler-Matt Brown	7/26	Fox	8:00-10:00pm	1.6
Global Rallycross	7/26	NBC	2:00-3:00pm	0.3
Red Bull Hare Scramble	7/26	NBC	3:00-4:30pm	0.4
Asics World Series Of Beach Volleyball	7/26	NBC	4:30-6:00pm	0.5
"Road to the PGA Championship"	7/27	CBS	2:00-3:00pm	0.5
PGA Tour: RBC Canadian Open: Final Round	7/27	CBS	3:00-6:00pm	1.8
Tour de France review show	7/27	NBC	2:00-3:30pm	0.4
Asics World Series Of Beach Volleyball	7/27	NBC	3:30-5:00pm	0.6
Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Haskell Invitational	7/27	NBC	5:00-6:00pm	0.8