The NASCAR Chicago Street Race lost a chunk of viewers during a long rain delay Sunday, falling nearly a million viewers short of last year’s national television audience for the debut Cup Series run through Grant Park.
The extended broadcast of the Grant Park 165 on NBC, broken up by nearly two hours of programming filler as the street course shut down during a steady summer rain, averaged 3.87 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen data released late Monday.
Last year, the inaugural July Fourth weekend event navigated record rainfall that curtailed races, canceled concerts and left remaining fans soaked. But the TV broadcast averaged nearly 4.8 million viewers, the most watched Cup Series race on NBC since 2017.
Viewership was down for this year’s race from the start Sunday afternoon, peaking just after the green flag dropped at 4:11 p.m. When the red flag came out about an hour later amid increasing rain and crashes, it precipitated a lengthy delay that drove away viewers.
Many didn’t come back to see Alex Bowman slosh to his first Cup Series win of the year on all-weather tires, outlasting the field before a NASCAR-imposed hard stop at 8:20 p.m. While viewership fell short of last year, it was nonetheless the biggest audience for a Cup Series race on NBC this season, the network said.
The Chicago Street Race once again featured a 12-turn, 2.2-mile pop-up course lined with temporary fences, grandstands and hospitality suites. The Grant Park 165 was downsized this year from 100 to 75 laps, the de facto length of last year’s rain-delayed Cup Series race.
But once again, it didn’t quite make it to the designated finish line.
Despite a sunny start for the Xfinity Series race Saturday, the skies opened up and rain descended ahead of the main event Sunday, which was called after 58 laps when the clock ran out at sunset on the essentially unlit street course.
“Obviously, Sunday’s wet weather wasn’t ideal, but even still, again, we were able to get the race in,” Julie Giese, president of NASCAR’s Chicago Street Race, said Monday. “And everything I’ve heard from attendees to people who watched the broadcast either day has been nothing but positive.”
Last year, torrential rains pushed back the green flag for the inaugural Grant Park race by hours. But once the race started, the audience grew, peaking at nearly 5.4 million prime time viewers as New Zealand Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen won his NASCAR debut in a come-from-behind finish.
In November, NASCAR renewed a seven-year media rights deal with NBC and Fox worth a reported $7.7 billion, boosted no doubt by the strong Chicago showing.
This year, the full weekend of racing was broadcast on NBC, including the Xfinity Loop 110 on Saturday, and the Grant Park 165 on Sunday. Last year, NBC carried the Cup Series race but the lower-tier Xfinity series aired on co-owned cable channel USA.
NBC brought a team of 200 people to cover the Chicago races, camped in a sea of trailers south of turn 6, near the Grant Park pickleball courts. They employed more than 90 cameras, drones and a helicopter to capture the racing action and the telegenic backdrop provided by the lakefront, skyline and the park setting itself.
In addition, 11 drivers were also equipped with in-car cameras.
The weather was picture perfect for Saturday’s Xfinity race, which was won by van Gisbergen, the favorite to repeat as Cup Series champion on Sunday.
But after winning Stage 1 of Sunday’s race, van Gisbergen was knocked out during the 25th lap amid steady rain and slick roads as he was clipped from behind and crashed into turn 6 onto Balbo Drive.
The red flag came out and the race was paused while NASCAR let the rain run its course.
That left the NBC broadcast crew scrambling once again to fill the programming void.
“We have hit weather scenarios so many times that there’s a game plan in place,” Jeff Behnke, vice president of motor sports production for NBC Sports, said Sunday night. “We have choices that are already built in. But it always starts with staying live and talking to drivers, because that’s what the fans love.”
NBC jumped into action during the two-hour delay, offering a string of live interviews with drivers, shots of drenched fans knocking back drinks and pre-recorded Chicago-themed segments flavored with lots of deep dish pizza and hot dogs.
The driver interviews played like “reality TV” in a bid to keep loyal NASCAR fans tuned in during the downtime, Behnke said. But as the minutes turned to hours, fans sought cover and a significant number of viewers apparently turned the channel.
“I hate that this has happened two years in a row,” said Ryan Blaney, reigning 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion, dripping under an umbrella. “The city deserves better weather than this when we come here.”
When the rain finally abated and the racing resumed under the green flag at about 7:20 p.m., there was an hour to go before the NASCAR-imposed time limit expired.
The Cup Series broadcast was once again delivered radio style, with a main booth near the start/finish line at Buckingham Fountain and announcers stationed at points along the track to provide real-time commentary at every turn.
The announcers served another purpose on Sunday, with micro-weather reports along the 2.2-mile track, which was so spread out that certain areas were dry while others were drenched.
“It was actually a little humorous,” Behnke said. “The track is so big that there were different weather situations all over the track.”
The inaugural Chicago Street Race drew 79,299 attendees from 15 countries and all 50 states, generating $108.9 million in total economic impact and $23.6 million in media exposure, according to a study conducted by Temple University’s Sport Industry Research Center for Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism arm.
Giese said the attendance target for this year’s event was 50,000 per day and 100,000 over the weekend. She declined to disclose ticket sales Monday, but Choose Chicago is expected to report that number in an upcoming economic impact report.
From a conceptual perspective, this year’s Chicago Street Race came much closer to fulfilling NASCAR’s vision of a festival weekend, especially during the good weather on Saturday, Giese said.
Unlike last year, NASCAR was able to put on the full slate of planned concerts throughout the weekend, including shows by Keith Urban, The Black Keys, Lauren Alaina and The Chainsmokers.
“I think you look at Saturday and being able to run the Xfinity race and have all of those concerts…it was just really beneficial to see all of that come together and be able to deliver on that full experience,” Giese said.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com