Sunday was a night that NBC had been long looking forward to, its return to NASCAR at Daytona with the mid-season Coke Zero 400. Moving the race from its customary Saturday night to Sunday, NBC hoped it would attract a bigger audience, but the weather gods would not cooperate. Looking to take a bite out of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Final on Fox, NBC even scheduled the race to start at 7 p.m., the same time as the soccer match.
However, rain fell over Daytona and kept falling to the point where it delayed the start until 11:42 p.m. ET, well after soccer and blowing away the late local news in many parts of the country. The race’s conclusion came after 2 a.m. leaving diehard gearheads watching. It left NBC with a very low 2.6 overnight rating. It was up 8% from last year’s 2.4 rating when the race aired on TNT and was delayed a full day due to rain.
Due to the delay, some local NBC stations chose to air their newscasts online like in Phoenix:
ALERT: Due to #NASCAR rain delay, 12 News at 10 p.m. will be online and on the app tonight.
— 12 News (@12News) July 6, 2015
Others elected to not to air a late edition as was the case in Denver:
We had hoped to bring you @9NEWS at 10 tonight, but the NASCAR delay was unusually long.
— 9NEWS Denver (@9NEWS) July 6, 2015
We invite you to join us for 9NEWS Mornings starting at 4:30 a.m., and 9NEWS returns at 10pm Monday night.
— 9NEWS Denver (@9NEWS) July 6, 2015
The last time the race ended in the wee hours of the morning in the Eastern half of the country was in 2005 when it was also broadcast on NBC, but that was on a Saturday night and easier for viewers to stay up. That year, the race garnered a 4.8 overnight.
NBC has one silver lining that the Coke Zero 400 was the second-highest rated sporting event of the weekend after the Women’s World Cup and finished ahead of the PGA Tour’s Greenbrier Classic on CBS.
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