They say the Kentucky Derby is the sport’s most exciting two minutes, and NBC plans nearly eight hours of coverage around 120-second charging Thoroughbreds on Saturday.
NBC kicks off at noon from Louisville’s famous Churchill Downs, where the famous derby has been run since jockey Oliver Louis Aristides rode to victory on May 17, 1875.
New this year is live Spanish-language coverage of the race by Telemundo Deportes on NBC airing on premium cable channel Universo starting at 6:30 p.m. (also on the Telemundo Deportes website and app).
So what kind of TV audience should we expect?
A year ago, it averaged 16 million viewers (the best since pre-pandemic 2019) and won the exhilarating storyline of Rich Strike, whose 80-1 odds made his victory the second-biggest upset since Donnerle’s 91-1 odds of winning in 1913.
One of the biggest upsets in KENTUCKY DERBY HISTORY.
Rich Strike (odds 81-1) wins the 148th Kentucky Derby #KyDerby
🎥 @employee pic.twitter.com/6o3S30JSWv
– The Athletic May 7, 2022
This year’s favorite is Forte, the recent Florida Derby winner. But many may tune in to the potential thrill of winning the long shot (and the betting associated with it). As of Tuesday, there are four 50-1 shots at Derby Stadium. The winner of the race gets $1.86 million of the $3 million.
Others watch the derby break away from tradition and for a festival of ornate hats, seersucker suits, mint juleps, celebrities, the crowd singing “My Old Kentucky Home” and perhaps the slutty area where 50,000 people get to make as many as 120 cases of juggling. .
This year also marks the 50th anniversary of Secretariat winning the 1973 Kentucky Derby in an unbeaten record time of 1:59.4, so expect coverage of that historic moment.
The Kentucky Derby is the 12th race of the day on the 14th on Saturday, with the latest time being 6:57pm ET.
Starting at noon, NBC will broadcast live coverage of some of the day’s other races as well, but the focus remains on the Derby. Saturday will also mark the second year that NBC’s Peacock streaming service will carry the race and its festivities live at the pay level.
USA Network and NBC-owned Peacock will air the Kentucky Oaks show dedicated to the foals starting at 1 p.m. Friday.
Sure, pre-race hype and drama can boost eyeball numbers, and subsequent Preakness and Belmont Stakes races can benefit from expecting a Triple Crown winner to come out of the Derby, but the Derby itself generally doesn’t get an unexpected crowd boost.
This does not mean that it cannot happen.
Perhaps most notably, Maximum Security won the 2019 Kentucky Derby, but immediately after the race, the result was reviewed, and race officials elected to make the second-place finisher Country House the winner and disqualify Maximum Security for impeding other horses on the track.
The viewership for this derby peaked at 18.5 million in the 20-minute post-race controversy, after the actual race had ended. (Note: A peak audience is not the same as a normal audience.)
Such theater could have moved the needle for crowd numbers for next year’s derby, but we all know what happened to live sports in 2020.
Kentucky Derby TV viewers
year | average audience | winner |
---|---|---|
2022 |
16 million |
Rich Strike |
2021 |
14.5 million |
mandaloo * |
2020 |
9.3 million |
A native |
2019 |
16.5 million |
country house * |
2018 |
15.0 million |
justify** |
2017 |
16.5 million |
always dreaming |
2016 |
15.6 million |
Nyquist |
2015 |
16.1 million |
American Pharaoh ** |
2014 |
15.4 million |
California Chrome |
2013 |
16.2 million |
orb |
* Winner after disqualification
**Final Triple Crown winner
There was also controversy in the Kentucky Derby in 2021 when winner Medina Spirit was disqualified, but that came a week into the race due to a failed drug test, and runner-up Mandalone was declared the winner. Famous and controversial coach Bob Baffert was suspended over the incident.
The Kentucky Derby is one of the major sporting events that is unique in that the actual racing is very short compared to, say, the hours of Super Bowl events, World Championships, Masters Finals and the Stanley Cup. So how does NBC make money from racing? With 7.5 hours of coverage and plenty of content broadcasted through TV and Live. The network’s plans call for a drone camera, two live jockey cameras, a stewards’ room camera, and 50 cameras total at the track, including a red carpet “360 Glam Cam” for celebrity coverage.
And according to tradition, a notable person will give the “riders” command—this year, Patrick Mahomes, quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs.
So, there’s a lot of airtime and content that NBC can sell ads for. But with such a short window of actual racing, which leaves no room for commercials, the basic strategy is to sell ads at increasingly larger premiums closer to publication time.
That’s similar to the Super Bowl, where $7 million bought 30 seconds of airtime on average, with ads near the start and other sure-footed eyeball moments priced higher. Obviously, the difference is that more ad stock is available *during* the hours-long Super Bowl and its massive audience.
Commercial airtime for the Derby becomes more expensive the closer a brand is to purchasing a venue for the start of the race, which obviously has no commercials while the horses charge around the track. NBC is packing its advertising inventory across the day’s coverage, and while its pricing isn’t disclosed, it doesn’t charge Super Bowl-level rates. But it’s still not cheap.
Last year, 37 advertisers spent a total of $33.8 million on 118 locations (61 unique) during the day’s coverage of the Derby and other races at Churchill Downs, according to iSpot.tv data. Analyze it by Sports Business Journal. That averages over $286,000 per spot (but maybe even cheaper thanks to multi-point discounts and other temptations).
This year’s race will be the second year of a full normal life for the Kentucky Derby. In 2020, the pandemic forced a rescheduling to September, which put it into conflict with football and pulled TV viewership down to an average of 9.3 million. The following year it returned to its traditional Saturday schedule in May but with a limited track capacity to around 52,000 instead of the usual 150,000 fans inside the vast Churchill Downs.
Last year the event was back to near full capacity, with a reported attendance of 147,000. The stadiums and grandstands should be filling up again this year, especially with decent weather forecast – mostly cloudy, high 75 degrees, and a 24 in chance of rain. Cent. Potential rain expected on a Friday night could make for a muddy Saturday, but that’s all part of the experience and isn’t likely to discourage attendees too much.
The Kentucky Derby has been on television since it first aired on CBS in 1952. NBC picked up the rights from ABC in 2001 and is airing the Kentucky Derby (And Kentucky Oaks on Friday) under a media rights deal. For 10 years extending until 2025 races.
NBC’s previous deal with Churchill Downs reportedly averaged about $9 million a year, but it’s unclear how much NBC pays Churchill Downs under the current contract. What is almost certain is that the next rights deal will be more valuable than what NBC is paying now because live sports, especially top-tier content, remain the most immune to the audience decline associated with cord cutting and the general decline in television use.
The Helming NBC broadcast booth this year for its seventh Kentucky Derby is host Mike Tirico with analysis from former jockey and two-time Derby winner Jerry Bailey and, for the 43rd time, Randy Moss (not the footballer). NBC’s broadcast mix will also include Steve Kornacki of NBC News and Dale Earnhardt Jr of NBC Sports, among others.
Basketball: Golden State’s 120-100 Series Seven decider over Sacramento on Sunday afternoon averaged 9.8 million viewers on ABC, the NBA said, making it the league’s most-watched first-round game in 24 years. It’s also ABC’s best non-final audience for an NBA playoff game. It peaked at 11.9 million viewers.
The game led the NBA’s first-round television viewership, which averaged 3.4 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV to give it a 15 percent increase over the equivalent round last season. TNT games averaged 3.5 million viewers, a 6 percent increase from 2022 and the network’s best first-round average in five years, while ABC and ESPN averaged 4.5 million viewers to improve the season. the past by 18 percent.
The league also noted that games on TNT, ABC, and ESPN won the under-50 pilot in prime time on 13 of 14 nights. Additionally, social media views on the league’s own platforms and the NBA app garnered 2.6 billion video views during the first round, up 26 percent from last year.
hockey: The Florida Panthers beat the President’s Trophy-winning Boston Bruins out of the Stanley Cup playoffs with a 4-3 overtime victory in Game 7 on Sunday averaging 3.09 million viewers on TNT for the start of its 6:30 p.m. The Seattle Kraken’s first playoff series ended with an upset Game 7 victory over the defending champion Colorado Avalanche in prime time Sunday, averaging 2.01 million viewers on TNT.
NFL Draft: The first round, which featured plenty of quarterbacks, selection and trading chaos and drama, averaged 11.4 million viewers Thursday night, while the three days’ coverage averaged 6 million viewers. That’s a total average across ABC, ESPN, NFL Network, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and digital channels, according to the NFL. The first round was above the combined average of 10.3 million in 2022 and about on par in recent years (except for the 2020 virtual pandemic draft year which averaged 15.6 million viewers as one of the few live sports industry events at the time). The average viewership this year of 6 million viewers in three days has surpassed the 5.2 million viewers in 2022.
Other soccer: The XFL Championship Game 3.0 is set. The Arlington Renegades (4-6) and DC Defenders (9-1) will play for the title at 8 p.m. on May 13 at the Alamodome in San Antonio. It is broadcast on ABC and ESPN Desportes. And yes, you read that correctly: The 4-6 Renegades, coached by Bob Stoops and losers in four of their last five regular season games, are in the title game.
Arlington hit their ticket by upsetting the Houston Roughnecks, 26-11, Saturday in a game ESPN averaged 675,000 viewers at 7 p.m., while the Defenders were in the title game after defeating the Seattle Sea Dragons, 37-21, in a 3 p.m. Sunday, which also aired on ESPN. This game averaged 478,000 viewers for its 3 p.m.
Both semifinals were also broadcast on ESPN Deportes and ESPN+.
In spring professional football, USFL-owned Fox Sports’ Week 3 led the alternate weekend pro football schedule with 776,000 viewers watching Memphis-Houston in prime time on Saturdays on Fox, while averaging noon on Fox. Sunday to Pittsburgh-Philadelphia 761000 on NBC. The Michigan Panthers’ home opener at Ford Field on Sunday afternoon on Fox averaged 563,000. The USA Network’s Saturday 12:30 p.m. game between New Orleans and Birmingham averaged 293,000.
Go deeper
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All viewership data is from Nielsen, Adobe Analytics, and other metrics across TV networks, Nielsen, Sports Media Watch, ShowBuzz Daily, 506Sports.com, and leagues, unless otherwise noted. All times eastern US.
(Photo of Rich Strike going down the stretch at the 2022 Kentucky Derby: Rob Carr/Getty Images)