When it comes to NASCAR ratings this season, the methodology and the platform seem to matter more than the racing.
Last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Chicagoland averaged 2.1 million viewers on TNT Sports, per the Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” methodology that is now the official currency, and 2.35 million per the old panel-only metric that NASCAR is publicizing for its races – marking the second time in as many weeks on TNT that the “Big Data” figure trailed its panel-only equivalent.
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On linear television – encompassing the Fox Sports portion of the season and the first two races on TNT – NASCAR Cup Series viewership has consistently been lower on a “Big Data” basis than under the old panel-only metric. That trend was reversed for the five races on streaming platform Prime Video, with “Big Data” outperforming ‘panel-only’ by 15%.
(“Big Data + Panel” integrates data from smart TVs, set-top boxes and select providers’ first-party data (including Amazon) with the traditional Nielsen panel. In the ten months since it rolled out last year, the methodology has generally lifted sports viewership, but NASCAR is among the exceptions. There is no definitive explanation as to why NASCAR viewership on linear television would be disadvantaged under “Big Data.”)
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NASCAR chose to stop reporting “Big Data + Panel” figures for its races following the Fox Sports portion of the season and is currently the only major sports league or network publicizing the ‘panel-only’ results. It is entirely possible that other leagues would see similar divergence between the “Big Data” and panel-only results if both were being publicized.