NASCAR Talladega Tops 8 NBA Playoff Games
The NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Talladega topped all sports shows in a multi-car length victory for the week of April 21-27, 2008. While the NBA playoffs put 8 games in the sports top 20, they couldn’t take the top spot unlike last week.
The NFL draft placed 5th between two perennial top 10 WWE Raw episodes, with an average viewership of 5.o million. One thing to note about the NFL draft is that it’s a five hour show. To hold that many average viewers on a Saturday afternoon for that long with a show that costs very little to produce makes it a bonanza for ESPN.
Top Sports Shows for the Week of April 21-27, 2008:
|
RANK |
PROGRAMS |
Network |
Persons Live+SD (000) |
HH Rating Live+SD |
|
1 |
FOX NASCAR SPRINT CUP (TALLADEGA) |
FOX |
8,992 |
5.7 |
|
2 |
FOX NASCAR SPRINT CUP POST |
FOX |
7,099 |
4.4 |
|
3 |
NBA (SAN ANTONIO AT PHOENIX) SUN 4/27 |
ABC |
5,156 |
3.5 |
|
4 |
WWE RAW |
USA |
5,131 |
2.9 |
|
5 |
NFL DRAFT |
ESPN |
5,034 |
3.4 |
|
6 |
WWE RAW |
USA |
4,791 |
2.8 |
|
7 |
FOX NASCAR SPRINT CUP PRE |
FOX |
4,483 |
3.0 |
|
8 |
NBA PLAYOFFS (SUNS/SPURS) |
TNT |
4,416 |
3.0 |
|
9 |
FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN |
CW |
4,296 |
2.4 |
|
10 |
AARON’S 312 AT TALLADEGA 4/26 |
ABC |
4,061 |
2.6 |
|
11 |
NBA (SPURS/SUNS) |
ESPN |
3,856 |
2.5 |
|
12 |
NBA (HORNETS/MAVERICKS) |
TNT |
3,730 |
2.5 |
|
13 |
NBA (NUGGETS/LAKERS) |
TNT |
3,385 |
2.4 |
|
14 |
NBA (CLEVELAND AT WASHINGTON) -SUN 4/27 |
ABC |
3,376 |
2.4 |
|
15 |
NBA (PISTONS/76ERS) |
TNT |
3,317 |
2.2 |
|
16 |
NBA (JAZZ/ROCKETS) |
TNT |
3,040 |
2.2 |
|
17 |
FOX SATURDAY BASEBALL (VARIOUS) |
FOX |
2,773 |
2.0 |
|
18 |
BYRON NELSON GOLF-SU 4/27 |
CBS |
2,611 |
1.8 |
|
19 |
NHL -SUN (NY RANGERS AT PITTSBURGH) |
NBC |
1,603 |
1.0 |
|
20 |
NBC POKER SERIES |
NBC |
1,376 |
1.0 |
The only NHL playoff game of the week in our list, NY Rangers at Pittsburgh, came in at #19 with 1.6 million viewers fairly typical for the top NHL playoff game this season.
As is typical when Tiger doesn’t play, PGA golf was hard pressed to put a single show, the Sunday Byron Nelson telecast, in the top 20 with an average of 2.6 million viewers.
Unlike past weeks there weren’t any soccer games that made our top 20. The top one was the Univision telecast of the Toluca v. UAG Tecos game which averaged 925,000 viewers.
Our Sports Ratings combine the top Broadcast sports shows and any sports shows that appeared in the top 40 cable programs. It is possible that a cable sports show that had enough viewers to make this list is left off because it didn’t have enough viewers to make the list of the top 40 cable programs for the week which is all we have access to.
Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Yes… a single NASCAR race topped each of the individual NBA games. So what? All NASCAR fans are concentrated to a single race each week. The NBA fans are scattered across several different games.
To have a better measurement of NASCAR to NBA, you need to combine the viewers of all the NBA games. and when you do that, it's not even close.