The Triple Crown’s second leg stumbled from a viewership perspective, despite delivering a thrilling race.
Saturday’s Preakness Stakes on NBC averaged 4.6 million viewers during the race portion of the broadcast (6:35 – 7:25 p.m. ET), marking the least-watched edition of the race since 1995 (excluding the COVID-impacted October Preakness in 2020). Viewership peaked in the 7 p.m. ET quarter-hour at 5.9 million viewers for Journalism’s comeback victory.
The Preakness audience saw a 16% dip from last year (5.47 million viewers) when Seize the Grey edged Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan by a couple of lengths.
A viewership drop was to be expected considering this year’s Derby winner, Sovereignty, opted to skip the race to instead focus on the Belmont Stakes in three weeks’ time. Sovereignty continues a concerning trend of Kentucky Derby horses skipping the Preakness due to the quick two-week turnaround between races not falling in line with modern training practices. As a result, many in the sport have urged the Preakness and Belmont to rethink their scheduling to ensure more Derby horses can participate in all three legs of the Triple Crown.
Nevertheless, Journalism’s win on Saturday still delivered the top sports audience of the day beating out the third round of the PGA Championship on CBS and a Stanley Cup Playoff game on ABC.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.