"The Contest" received a Nielsen rating of 13/19, meaning that the episode was watched by an average of 13% of households and 19% of all televisions were tuned to the episode when it was broadcast. Approximately 18.5 million people watched the episode then. The first repeat of the episode gave "Seinfeld" its highest ratings up till that point, with a 20.1/30 Nielsen Rating. It also received only 31 complaints from viewers, despite the subject matter. There were worries from advertisers who did not want to advertise during the episode due to the topics that were being discussed. Most regular advertisers did not broadcast adverts during the show, because the series did not have good ratings at the time.