NASCAR Clash Masked Singer Credit: imagn images, X
By Matt Yoder on

The NASCAR season finally got underway, at least unofficially, Wednesday night with the Clash at Bowman Gray. However, fans who were hoping to watch the end of the race on Fox were not rewarded for their patience with coverage booted to the lowly FS2 for The Masked Singer.

The traditional exhibition race to open the NASCAR season is in its second year at the North Carolina short track after a stint at the Los Angeles Coliseum as the racing series looks to continue a return to its roots in the hopes of reconnecting with fans. It was originally scheduled for the weekend before much of the eastern United States was hit with a ferocious winter storm. That delayed the race all the way until Wednesday night.

And then, NASCAR’s incredibly bad luck with mother nature continued as the race was beset by rain. After delays and even the use of rain tires, cars were finally on track racing towards the finish. However, as soon as 9 p.m. ET hit, Fox chose to abandon live coverage on the broadcast network in favor of the primetime series The Masked Singer. With college basketball already airing live on FS1, that meant that the end of the Clash had to be relegated all the way to the barely-watched FS2.

Of course, coverage also continued on the Fox One and Fox Sports apps so streaming-conscious fans with access there had options. But it’s safe to say that the wide majority of NASCAR fans were out of luck when the decision was made. And they were not happy about it with fans flooding NASCAR’s mentions on social media with frustration.

The FS2 sports lineup resembles the Fallout wasteland of sports networks with such listings as U-17 CONCACAF soccer, LIV Golf, horse racing, and copious amounts of replays of games from other Fox networks. At least FS2 delivers Australian Rules Football on a regular basis, so that’s a bonus. But saying nobody watches the channel is hardly hyperbole. According to the USTVDB website, it’s the 108th most popular cable channel averaging just 11,000 viewers. That puts it well behind something called Justice Central, which is apparently a 24/7 channel of courtroom shows.

The major issue with sending a sporting event from Fox to FS2 is just how out of mind it is for sports fans. FS2 is in just an estimated 49 million homes. That sounds like a lot, but it’s far behind FS1 at 68 million. In fact, given the live sports output on FS2, you can imagine that Wednesday night’s race may have been the first time that fans even learned of its existence. It’s why we have seen Fox even use Fox Business Channel for overruns and programming challenges in past years.

While The Masked Singer is not where it was at its peak from a ratings standpoint, it’s still one of the few primetime television shows that can draw a reliable audience. And for Fox, it’s apparently strong enough to get the nod over midweek NASCAR racing.

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