TV Ratings: Growth for IMSA, NHRA openers

The 2017 U.S. racing season opened with coverage of both the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series on the FOX broadcast network, yielding significant growth for both.

Last month's Rolex 24 at Daytona coverage on FOX scored a 0.50 household rating and averaged 714,000 viewers. That was up from a best of 0.29/431,000 for the event in 2016 on FOX Sports 1. The FS1 portions of this year's Rolex 24 also beat last year's numbers, with 516,000 viewers tuning in for the finish on the cable network Sunday afternoon.

The NHRA's season-opening Circle K Winternationals finals at Pomona was also live on FOX last Sunday afternoon, scoring a 0.79 rating and averaging 1.2 million viewers. This was up from a 0.40/640,000 from last year on FS1, and marked the most watched broadcast in the event's 57-year history.

The NHRA's qualifying shows during the opening weekend also had strong viewership on FS1. The Friday night qualifying show had 193,000 viewers and was the most watched program on the network during the day. The live one-hour qualifying show on Feb. 11 had viewership of 195,000 at 1 p.m. Eastern.