TV News: Weekend USA TV Ratings (Update)
–by Mark Cipolloni–
The rating information has been updated below with IndyCar’s numbers from Mid-Ohio on Sunday and our Rating Data Table has been added.
We also added the F1 Sprint Race on Saturday morning from Austria, which outdrew IndyCar’s Mid-Ohio race on Sunday afternoon.
July 5, 2023
–by Mark Cipolloni–
Formula 1
Another F1 race, another viewership record!
The Austrian GP attracted its largest U.S. TV audience on record
1.09M avg. viewers tuned in, up 2.25% from last year’s 1.066M on ESPN2. Viewership peaked at 1.21M viewers.
The replay of the Austrian GP at 7:30pm Sunday night had 281,000 viewers for a total race viewership of 1.371M
So far this year, F1 races are averaging 1.26M viewers, up from ’22 avg. of 1.21M.
441,000 viewers were in the 18-49 age bracket, a healthy 40%.
Saturday’s Sprint race won by Max Verstappen on ESPN attracted 806,000 viewers between 10:24-11:12 a.m. ET.
Saturday morning’s Sprint Shootout (Sprint Qualifying) attracted 306,000 viewers between 6-6:49 a.m. ET. on ESPN2.
Four races this year have set USA event viewership records (Saudi Arabia, Monaco, Canada, Austria).
NASCAR
We previously published the overnight TV ratings for the NASCAR Chicago Cup race. The final numbers are now in.
NBC drew 4.622M viewers for the inaugural NASCAR Chicago Street race [Linear TV only – does not include streaming data]. 700,000 of those viewers were in the all-important 18-49 year age bracket, which represents only 15% of the total viewers. This is a horrible result for NASCAR and underscores that it has a fanbase that is aging out. Compare NASCAR’s 15% to F1’s 40%
IndyCar
The USA network drew 739,000 viewers for the IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio, down 15.74% from last year’s 877,000 viewers and a TV rating of 0.57 on NBC.
It was the most watched IndyCar race on cable TV since Nashville in 2021 and 5th best ever
Last year, 213,000 of the viewers were in the all-important 18-49 year old age group, i.e. 24.2%.
This year the 18-49 viewership dropped to 100,000 or 14% – even worse than NASCAR’s aged out fanbase and down 53.05% from last year.
TV Rating Data
| Network | Event | Location | Total Viewers |
18-49 Viewers |
Ratio: 18-49 Yr Old/ Total Viewers |
2023 Rating |
2022 Rating |
Rating % Chg. |
2022 Network |
2022 Viewers |
2022 18-49 Viewers |
Total Viewers % Chg |
18-49 Viewers % Chg |
| NBC | NASCAR Cup race | Chicago | 4,622,000 | 700,000 | 15% | 1.83 | New event, no race last year | ||||||
| USA | NASCAR Xfinity race | Chicago | 1,147,000 | 160,000 | 14% | 0.48 | New event, no race last year | ||||||
| ESPN | F1 Austrian GP | Spielberg | 1,090,000 | 441,000 | 40% | 0.60 | 0.58 | +3.44% | ESPN2 | 1,066,000 | 472,000 | +2.25% | -6.56% |
| ESPN | F1 Sprint Race | Spielberg | 806,000 | 338,520 | 42% | 0.40 | New event, no race last year | ||||||
| USA | IndyCar Race | Mid-Ohio | 739,000 | 100,000 | 14% | 0.40 | 0.57 | -29.82% | NBC | 877,000 | 213,000 | -15.74% | -53.05% |
| ESPN2 | F1 Friday Qualifying | Spielberg | 341,000 | 110,000 | 32% | 0.20 | No Friday Qualifying in 2022 | ||||||
| ESPN2 | F1 Sprint Qualifying | Spielberg | 306,000 | 90,000 | 29% | 0.20 | No Sprint Qualifying in 2022 | ||||||