NASCAR ratings revealed for Cup Series championship race at Phoenix

Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series championship race at Phoenix got a 1.60 rating and drew 2.895 viewers on NBC, per Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal.

Those figures represent a slight decrease from last year’s championship race, which delivered a 1.62 rating and 2.9 million viewers. Overall, NASCAR viewership was up 1% from the 2023 season.

NASCAR President Steve Phelps discussed the ratings at length Friday, citing how rain impacted many of its notable events, including the Clash at the Coliseum, Daytona 500 and Coca-Cola 600. Phelps touted the resilience of the sport and said that “support is growing.”

NASCAR President Steve Phelps addresses ratings after multiple rain-impacted races during season

“Ratings, I’ll spend a little time on ratings, because it’s super important,” Phelps said. “I want to go back and have a little story time. The beginning of this year, in early February, we had an event, The Clash at the Coliseum, and we were looking at a historic atmospheric river event, I believe, is what they called it. It was just — a lot of rain, I guess we’ll go with that.

“So, we did something we had never done before, we pulled a race up a day, and we raced on Saturday night. Got crushed in the rating. Fans didn’t know when it was, how we’re going to get there. Saturday night is the lowest-rated day of the week, but it was the right thing to do. It was a financial bath for us, but it was the right thing to do, for the industry.

“Go two weeks down the road [Daytona 500], and we had more rain, and so we delayed the start of that race a full day, and we took a ratings bath. So, we were down -27. Then, we had a rain-shortened race at the Coca-Cola 600. A rain-interrupted event at the Chicago Street Race. So, three of your biggest races are down double-digits. So mid-teens for the 600 and for the Chicago Street Race, and then -27 [Daytona 500].

“If you would ask me at the beginning of the year, ‘I will bet you that you can dig out of a 27% hole at the 500, and then two double-digit ratings declines on your next two highest-rated races,’ or two of the three highest-rated races, I would have said, ‘There is no way that’s going to happen.’ As we sit here for our Cup race, we are in the positive numbers. And what does that say to me? It says the sport is resilient, and the support is growing.”

Joey Logano wins third Cup Series title since 2018

Those who tuned into the championship race saw Joey Logano capture his third Cup Series title, all coming since 2018. The Team Penske star became the 10th driver to win three or more Cup Series championships. Logano, whose 17.1 average finish this season was the worst in history for a champion, proved his naysayers wrong at Phoenix.

“No. I got nothing to say to them,” Logano said after the race, via Matt Weaver of Sportsnaut. “I’ve got a pretty sweet trophy right now. I’m gonna be laughing all the way to the bank.”