IndyCar sees 50% viewership drop on FOX after going head to head with NASCAR

Every IndyCar race will be featured on the primary FOX network this year and with heavy promotion, the series opened its new season with 1.417 million viewers for St. Petersburg. This was an impressive 45% jump from the previous year on NBC.

Unfortunately, that momentum did not carry over into Thermal, which clashed directly with the NASCAR Cup race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on FOX Sports 1. The two events started within minutes of each other, creating a head-to-head matchup between the open-wheel and stock car racing divisions. 

The situation was compounded by the fact that the IndyCar broadcast went down for just over 20 minutes in the middle of the race after FOX lost its signal. This was due to a power outage that occurred inside a production truck. During the delay, the NASCAR race was simulcast on both FOX and FS1.

NASCAR, F1 and IndyCar viewership for the weekend

IndyCar ended up with 704,000, which was a 50.3% drop from the season-opener at St. Pete. Of note, last year’s IndyCar race at Thermal, which was a non-points exhibition event, had around 788,000 watching on NBC and did not clash with that weekend’s NASCAR event. The fall-off between the first two races of the year is the biggest IndyCar has seen since 2018 when it lost nearly 80% between the season-opener on ABC and the second round of the year on NBCSN.

The Cup race at Homestead on FS1 saw viewership reach 2.464 million, topping all other motorsport events throughout the weekend. Looking at other notable races, the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix on ESPN — which began a 3 a.m. EST. — had 824,000 viewers. The NASCAR Truck race on Friday night (FOX) featured 906,000 viewers while the NASCAR Xfinity race on Saturday (The CW) reached 1.160 million.

Long Beach, which is the next race on the IndyCar schedule, starts 90 minutes after the Cup race at Bristol and will also overlap to some extent.

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