NBC Sports' presentation of Saturday's history-making 152nd Kentucky Derby delivered the most watched "Run for the Roses" on record with an average of 19.6 million viewers on NBC and Peacock - topping by 11% last year's Derby audience (17.7 million viewers, won by Sovereignty), which was the event's largest in 36 years (18.5 million viewers in 1989 for Sunday Silence victory) - according to preliminary data from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
Viewership peaked at 24.4 million viewers from 7-7:15 p.m. ET, as jockey Jose Ortiz guided Golden Tempo around the final turn to win by a neck over Renegade, and made Cherie DeVaux the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner. The peak audience was also the largest ever for an NBC Sports presentation of the Kentucky Derby (up 12% from 21.8 million last year).
Saturday was the second consecutive record-setting day at Churchill Downs, following Friday night's 152nd Kentucky Oaks, which was contested for the first time under the lights in primetime. NBC Sports' presentation of Always A Runner's 11/4-length victory averaged a record 2.4 million viewers on NBC and Peacock - four times the prior Kentucky Oaks record (593,000 viewers in 1997 on ESPN) and nearly eight times the average of the last three years' audiences (304,000 on USA Network).
Led by Peacock, the "Run for the Roses" posted NBC Sports' largest streaming audience for a horse racing event with an Average Minute Audience (AMA) of 1.3 million viewers - up 36% from last year (959,000) and nearly doubling 2024 (714,000).
NBC Sports has averaged 15+ million viewers across all platforms for 11 of the last 13 Kentucky Derby races held in May (2013-2024, excludes 2020 Covid-impacted event which was moved to September).
With 19.6 million viewers (6:32-7:27 p.m. ET), the 2026 Kentucky Derby will rank as NBC's most-watched Saturday program since the Milan Cortina Olympics.
Official metrics will be available on Tuesday.
