By alley - Mar 21, 2017, 1:28 PM ET

TV Ratings: NASCAR fouled by NCAAs

For the first time, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix went head-to-head with the NCAA Tournament, which is currently seeing the highest average viewership through the first weekend since the current format began in 1991, according to Sports Media Watch.

As a result, Fox earned a 3.0 overnight/5.4 million viewers for the Camping World 500, down from the 3.6 it drew a year ago when race was held a week earlier and before the tournament,

according to SportsBusiness Daily

. That's a 17 percent drop from last year and 21 percent fall from 2015. According to Sports Media Watch, it's the lowest overnight in the 12-year history of the race; the previous low was a 3.3 in 2009 when it was still a Saturday night race.

Bad news continues as SMW reports Sunday's race as tying the fourth-lowest overnight for NASCAR on Fox since 2001. Last week's ratings from Las Vegas were unavailable after Nielsen suffered a catastrophic outage the week before. But the MENCS race was the highest-viewed non-tournament-related event, followed by the PGA Arnold Palmer Invitational, which drew a 1.5.

The Xfinity Series race on Fox drew a 1.21 rating/1.85 million viewers on Saturday afternoon, likely impacted by Wisconsin's 65-62 upset win over No. 1 overall seed Villanova in the same broadcast window.

Monster Energy Supercross on Fox drew a 0.50 rating/813,000 viewers – and the Indy Star reports Saturday's crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium totaled more than 60,000 people.

The NHRA Amalie Oil Gatornationals from Gainesville drew an 0.29/439,000 on FS1, down from a 0.35 rating/514,000 viewers in 2016.

Ratings figures for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Sebring were unavailable, but the peak audience was given as 148,000 viewers on FS1.