May 4th, 2021
Medina Spirit wins the 147th Kentucky Derby on May 1 at Churchill Downs. (Eclipse Sportswire)
NBC Sports’ presentation of the 147th Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 14.5 million viewers as the “Run for the Roses” returned to its traditional first Saturday in May date – marking a 54% increase from last year’s event (9.4 million on Sept. 5), according to official national data provided by Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
Viewership peaked at 15.7 million viewers from 6:45-7 p.m. ET on NBC as Medina Spirit mounted a wire-to-wire victory and trainer Bob Baffert won the race for a record seventh time.