IndyCar Fontana TV Rating (Their grand finale!)
Saturday's race was the second straight to have a decline, coming nearly a week after viewership from Sonoma fell by 4%. To put that in perspective, the previous three races each had increases of over 50%, but if you get 1 viewer and the next year you get 2, that's a 100% increase – – i.e. the numbers are so small a 50% increase is meaningless.
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| Versus, now NBCSN, is the noose from which IndyCar is hanging itself from. On ABC the races averaged 2.4 million per broadcast but the Hulman George family prefers to collect the NBCSN check to help fund the Leader Circle welfare program |
Despite declines for the final two races, NBCSN had its best IndyCar season in three years. The network averaged 378,000 viewers (which is absolutely horrible) for 12 races, up 34% from last year’s 13-race average (282K), up 30% from 2012 (292K), and its second-most watched season since acquiring rights.
The top race of the season on NBCSN was Race 2 of the Toronto doubleheader on July 20 (484K), which also ranks as the network’s most-watched IndyCar telecast since 2011.
IndyCar viewership also increased on ABC this season, which averaged 2.4 million viewers across five races — up 14% from last year (2.1M).
09/02/14 The noose grows tighter around IndyCar's neck as it continues to align with NBCSN. Not only did a small crowd of about 6,000 show up to watch IndyCar's grand finale in person, the TV numbers were even worse. The TV rating for the MAVTV 500 on NBCSN was a 0.18 rating, down -18% from 0.22 last year.
Essentially they had a race, but no one watched.