Kentucky Derby 2025 draws largest TV audience since 1989

The 2025 Kentucky Derby delivered an NBC Sports-record average of 17.7 million viewers on NBC and Peacock. This marks the largest Kentucky Derby audience since 1989, when 18.5 million viewers watched the race won by Sunday Silence. It is a 6% increase from last year's figure of 16.7 million viewers who watched Mystik Dan’s victory in a three-horse photo finish.

Viewership peaked at 21.8 million viewers from 7–7:15 p.m. EDT, as Sovereignty ran to a 1 1/2-length victory over Journalism. The peak audience was the largest ever for an NBC Sports presentation of the Kentucky Derby, up 8% from 20.1 million last year.

Led by Peacock, the run for the roses posted NBC Sports’ largest streaming audience for a horse racing event with an average minute audience of 959,000 viewers, up 34% from last year (714,000) and nearly tripling 2023 (371,000).

NBC Sports has averaged 15 million viewers or more across all platforms for 10 of the last 12 Kentucky Derby races held in May. That includes races from 2013-2024, excluding the 2020 COVID-impacted event which was moved to September.

With 17.7 million viewers between 6:33–7:24 p.m. EDT, the 2025 Kentucky Derby will rank as NBC’s most-watched Saturday program since the NFL wild card playoffs in January 2024, excluding the Paris Olympics.

Total audience delivery is based upon live-plus-same day custom fast national figures from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe analytics. Official metrics will be available Tuesday.

The Preakness Stakes will be broadcast May 17. NBC Sports’ coverage of the race begins with the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes card at 4:30 p.m. EDT on Peacock. Preakness day coverage on NBC begins May 17 at 4 p.m., with coverage beginning at 2 p.m. EDT on CNBC. Broadcasts will stream on Peacock as well.