Denny Hamlin fires back at NASCAR ratings narrative

While the Saturday night NASCAR Cup Series races are a hit for fans in attendance, TV tends to suffer. One good example of that was this past Saturday’s race at Richmond Raceway, which earned a 0.75 rating and 1.4 million viewers on USA Network.

The August 2024 Richmond race, which took place on Sunday night, got a 1.2 rating and 2.2 million viewers. Prior to Richmond, the last Saturday night race was June 28 at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta. That race garnered 1.608 million viewers. The data is the data, but Denny Hamlin isn’t buying that viewership would be much different if the race were held 24 hours later.

“Are we naive enough to think a million more tune in 24 hours later?” Hamlin wrote on X.

Hamlin’s tweet was in response to Jeff Gluck of The Athletic reporting on the viewership numbers for Richmond. His response sparked debate under Gluck’s original tweet — Hamlin’s had some more thoughts. He believes there’s more to NASCAR’s viewership issues than “hitting the exact perfect time window every week.”

Asked to explain his overall point, Hamlin offered one more response. Simply put, he doesn’t want to hear any excuses.

“That fans are speaking with their remotes and we gotta stop making excuses of why,” Hamlin tweeted.

2026 NASCAR schedule missing much Saturday presence

While NASCAR has yet to officially unveil the 2026 schedule, Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic obtained a copy of the final version. Notably, there are only three Saturday races.

When NASCAR is in its usual Sunday timeslot, viewership holds steady above 2 million. Perhaps most importantly to those up top, NASCAR continues to top Formula One and IndyCar in viewership. That’s exactly why Ryan Blaney is unconcerned about the dip in viewers on Saturday nights. After the low rating for Atlanta, in which NASCAR still beat F1 by 500,000, Blaney tweeted the following:

“So, we got 500k more folks tuned in,” Blaney wrote replied. “Why do people make it out to be a bad thing? We crush the parade every week, so why do we get down in the dumps by this? Nascar is currently crushing it.”