TV ratings: NASCAR Watkins Glen; NHRA trends upward

Despite a lighter racing schedule minus IndyCar and F1, the opening weekend of the Rio Olympics dominated programming on the NBC family of networks and forced NASCAR coverage to move to USA.

The Rio Summer Games on NBC drew an 8.5 rating on Sunday and an 8.0 on Saturday in afternoon windows, according to Sports Business Daily. The morning ratings were 5.3 (Sunday) and 5.1 (Saturday), while late night earned a 4.1 and 3.9.

While the Olympics did affect NASCAR's viewership, the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen scored a 2.1 overnight rating, averaging 3.8 million viewers on USA – the top non-Olympic sports programming over the weekend. That compares to a 2.5 rating in 2015, when it drew 4.0 million viewers on NBCSN. According to Sports Business Daily, seven of the past nine Sprint Cup races have posted declines in metered markets (not counting the two Pocono washouts).

Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen, which found itself on CNBC, drew a 0.67 rating, averaging just over one million viewers.

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Road America averaged 74,000 viewers Sunday afternoon on Fox Sports 1.

Sunday's live coverage of the NHRA Mello Yello Series Protect the Harvest Northwest final eliminations drew a 0.55 rating and 849,000 viewers live on Fox. That's despite the fact that coverage moved to FS2 due to a rain delay. And it's a significant jump from a year ago, when tape-delayed coverage on ESPN2 brought in a 0.35 rating and 531,000 viewers.