FOX vs NBC

Now that the season is over, post-season reviews are coming in for every conceivable category. How did pit crew members compare to one another? How did each team perform overall? What were the glaring irregularities fans couldn’t help but notice throughout the season? Even something seemingly innocuous like FOX vs NBC television coverage becomes a heated point of contention.

Since broadcast rights first split between multiple networks, there have been fan favorites and heated arguments for each network’s decisions. Fans love or hate the commentators for each network. (Not naming any names, but the most polarizing commentators do have famous last names.) Fans love or hate features like the Digger cam and the Crank it Up segment. The leaderboard is even heavily debated. Some like one network’s font size and color selection better than the other. Some just miss when it used to scroll across the top and not take away so much viewing area.

When deciding on the preferred network, another factor to consider is availability. Many fans were left disgruntled when the NBC half of the season rolled around and they could no longer watch most of the races because they couldn’t be streamed through many common selections, including Peacock Premium. Bootleg streaming became the only source for some fans. While that does feel true to the roots of NASCAR racing, illegal is still illegal.

Let’s compare the two major networks and their viewership draw during the 2022 Cup season. Dover’s rain delay in the spring brought in 1.487 million viewers when FOX aired it on FS1. This was FOX’s worst-performing race. The fall Daytona race that aired on CNBC (of all channels) only pulled 1.406 million viewers. The Darlington races showed similar discrepancies. FOX pulled in 2.614 million viewers for the Spring Darlington race. NBC only pulled 2.341 million viewers.

The original idea behind broadcast rights division was that one network got the Daytona 500 while the other got the playoffs which should approximately even out viewership overall. That is simply not the case anymore. FOX regularly outperformed NBC in both viewership and ratings pull. What makes one favored over the other? Let us know your guess!