SUPERCARS’ racing return has delivered the biggest TV audiences since the Bathurst season opener, as the sport began a four-week residence at Sydney Motorsport Park.

The Seven Network drew audiences larger than both Darwin and Townsville to the Sydney event, while Fox Sports’ coverage was highlighted by big numbers watching in prime-time on Saturday evening.

Race 20 on Saturday drew 188,000 to Channel 7’s live and free coverage on their big channel in capital cities, with a further 211,000 watching in the regional areas for a total of 337,000.

| TV GUIDE: Check out TRT’s comprehensive racing TV guide here.

Seven’s coverage had a total reach of 1.45m people on Saturday, while the coverage itself averaged 223,000 people for the entire day.

On Fox Sports, 149,000 tuned in to the night time spectacle, the third largest audience of the season for the subscription TV broadcaster.

The total race audience of 548,000 made Race 20 the fourth most-watched of the year to date (behind the pair of Bathurst openers and Race 15 in Townsville).

TOP 10 RACES OF 2021 TO DATE

1. Race 2, Bathurst (710,000)
2. Race 1, Bathurst (664,000)
3. Race 15, Townsville (574,000)
4. Race 20, Sydney (548,000)
5. Race 14, Darwin (517,000)
6. Race 22, Sydney (484,000)
7. Race 16, Townsville (455,000)
8. Race 12, Darwin (451,000)
9. Race 13, Darwin (350,000)
10. Race 21, Sydney (333,000)

Incidentally, the power of free-to-air was shown when Saturday’s Top-10 shootout drew 100,000 to 7mate and a further 112,000 to Fox Sports for a total of 212,000 – that audience larger than 12 races held so far this year.

Race 21 drew a total audience of 333,000 to 7 and Fox. For comparison, Race 13 in Darwin, contested in a similar midday timeslot, drew 350,000.

Sunday’s later race, Race 22, attracted a total national audience of 484,000 which was comprised of 359,000 watching on Seven and 125,000 on Fox Sports, to make it the sixth most watched race of the year.

The big boost in races later in the afternoon is no surprise, and should continue to pay dividends at Sydney over the coming weeks – especially the fourth event which will see a pair of 250km races, one of them under lights and both of them on Seven and Fox.

Seven’s coverage averaged 253,000 people across the entire day on the primary channel.

Seven reported that 7plus streamed more than 2 million minutes of coverage across the course of the weekend.

Seven’s free to air audience is up more than 35% on Channel 10 after the same number of races in 2020, while Fox Sports’ numbers are up 1% overall to the same point last season.

As always, Kayo Sport has not reported their streaming figures.

As an aside, Supercars’ main rivals for sporting audience on the weekend was the horse racing and in this instance, the petrol-fuelled horspower destroyed the grass-fed kind.

Network 10’s coverage of Derby Day on Saturday drew less than 100,000 people nationally, the lowest audiences ever for the opening day of the Spring Racing carnival.

Even Seven’s own Horse Racing coverage battled to draw an audience; 115,000 watching their coverage from Eagle Farm and the Golden Eagle.

Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup will tell an interesting story, with that race having shred more than 600,000 viewers over the last six years.

It may be the ‘Race that stops the nation’, however in 2019 the Cup drew a metro audience of just 1.32 million people watching in capital cities. Bathurst that year drew 1.28 million – indicating that the real race that stops Australia might run for six hours, and not six minutes.