NBC Preakness Viewership Highest Since 2018
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Photo: Chad B. Harmon
NBC's Steve Kornacki analyzes the Preakness Stakes during the network's television coverage at Pimlico Race Course
The May 15 Preakness Stakes (G1) at Pimlico Race Course averaged an audience of seven million viewers, ranking it as the most-watched broadcast of the event since Triple Crown-winner Justify 's victory in 2018, according to NBC Sports.
The audience-tracked metric, called Total Audience Delivery, nearly tripled last year's viewership of 2.4 million during a COVID-19-postponed race last September and was up 29% from the 2019 Preakness. These figures are from official national data provided by Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
Viewership peaked at 8.6 million during the 15 minutes surrounding the race.
Saturday's Preakness was won by John and Diane Fradkin's Michael McCarthy-trained Rombauer , a son of Twirling Candy who upset Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) competitors Midnight Bourbon and Medina Spirit .
The latter, the first-place finisher from the Derby, had been in the headlines in the week leading up to the Preakness after trainer Bob Baffert announced May 9 that the colt had failed a post-race drug test due to the presence of the corticosteroid betamethasone.
Citing due process, Pimlico officials allowed Medina Spirit and other Baffert horses to compete after they cleared three pre-race drug tests. A split-sample drug test for the Kentucky Derby could take weeks for a result.
All sources-handle on Preakness day was a record $112.5 million, though on-track attendance was capped at 10,000 as a COVID-19 safety precaution.