The Daytona 500 drew a 7.3 overnight household rating in the 56 largest markets (out of 210). That’s up from last year’s 5.6 overnight where there was a six hour and twenty-two minute rain delay, but still down big (27%) from the 10.0 overnight the 2013 race garnered.
Update Tuesday February 24 at 11:30a ET: we expected Fox would release final national ratings and viewership on Monday. At the latest, those numbers should be in the wild by sometime on Thursday.
Update Thursday February 26 at 1:15p ET: the national household rating was a 7.7, up 38% from last year’s rain-delayed race, but otherwise the lowest since 2010. Viewership was up 43% to 13.36 million which excluding last year’s race was also the lowest since 2010. On a household rating basis it tied for the second-worst results in 20 years (with last year’s being the worst).
Ratings/viewership from 2007-2015 are here.