If you were told that Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 both broke viewership records in February, you'd probably assume it was because of something related to the Super Bowl or UFC, right? Well, you would be wrong – very, very wrong.
Last Saturday, Fox Sports 1 aired their first NASCAR race of the new season. The Sprint Unlimited drew a record 3.5 million viewers and a 2.0 rating, far and away the best numbers ever drawn since the rebrand of the network six months ago. Despite the record numbers, the Unlimited race was heavily down from last year's edition, which aired on Fox, and was also the lowest rated edition of the race since at least 2001.
As for Fox Sports 2, which still hasn't cleared the 50 million household mark, Sunday's FA Cup match between Arsenal and Liverpool drew 257,000 viewers, the highest audience for an FS2 telecast since their rebrand. When you consider that NBCSN's best audience of the year for a Premier League match is 1.0 million (Chelsea-Manchester United from January), Fox drawing 25% of those viewers for a matchup on a channel that is in vastly fewer households and much less promotion has to be considered a success.
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About Joe Lucia
I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.