TV News: USA Motorsports Weekend TV Ratings
USA Motorsport TV Ratings from last weekend. NASCAR was in North Wilkesboro, IndyCar was qualifying for the Indy 500 and Formula 1 was in Imola, Italy
TV Rating Analysis
NASCAR
FS1 averaged a 1.4 and 2.57 million viewers for Sunday’s NASCAR All-Star Race at Wilkesboro, the largest audience for the exhibition in three years, up 17% from 2.203 million last year and up from 2.481 million the prior year at Texas.
Top five markets:
1) Greensboro – 5.0
2) Charlotte – 4.5
3) Indy – 2.9
4) Raleigh – 2.4
5) Nashville – 2.0
IndyCar gets boost from Kyle Larson
Because of NASCAR star Kyle Larson, NBC got 1.145 million viewers for Sunday’s Indy 500 qualifying session (TV only), up 35% from last year’s 0.56 TV Rating and 842,000 viewers
Episode 4 of Season 2 of IndyCar’s version of F1’s Drive to Survive called 100 Days to Indy aired on CW on May 17th, and the viewership numbers were horrible (187,000 viewers on CW), but up slightly from last year.
Meant to ride on the coattails of F1’s successful Netflix Series Drive to Survive, 100 Days to Indy just never seemed to have the same impact as Drive to Survive in terms of generating new fans, which sees between 5 and 6 million viewers per episode.
Formula 1
The Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, won by Max Verstappen over Lando Norris, chipped in a 0.46 TV Rating and 861,000 viewers on ESPN2, and as a result of moving from ESPN two years ago to ESPN2 this year, was down 14%
NHRA
NHRA in Chicago followed the NASCAR All-Star race on FS1 and got a slight boost at a 0.22 TV Rating and 341,000 viewers
TV Rating Data
| Network | Event | Location | Total Viewers |
18-49 Viewers |
Ratio: 18-49 Yr Old/ Total Viewers |
2024 Rating |
2023 Rating |
Rating % Chg. |
2023 Network |
2023 Viewers |
2023 18-49 Viewers |
Total Viewers % Chg |
18-49 Viewers % Chg |
| FS1 | NASCAR All-Star Race | North Wilkesboro | 2,573,000 | 541,000 | 21% | 1.40 | 1.28 | +9.38% | FS1 | 2,203,000 | 447,000 | +16.80% | +21.03% |
| NBC | Indy 500 Qualifying | Indianapolis | 1,145,000 | 221,000 | 19% | 0.70 | 0.56 | +25.00% | NBC | 842,000 | 123,000 | +35.99% | +79.67% |
| ESPN2 | Formula 1 Race | Imola | 861,000 | 345,000 | 40% | 0.46 | 0.66 | -30.30% | *ESPN | 1,003,000 | 503,000 | -14.16% | -31.41% |
| FS1 | NASCAR Truck Race | North Wilkesboro | 413,000 | 70,000 | 17% | 0.25 | 0.58 | -56.90% | FS1 | 944,000 | 144,000 | -56.25% | -51.39% |
| FS1 | NHRA Finals | Chicago | 341,000 | 59,000 | 17% | 0.22 | 0.21 | +4.76% | FS1 | 327,000 | 79,000 | +4.28% | -25.32% |
| CW | 100 Days to Indy | Episode 4 | 187,000 | 20,000 | 11% | 0.11 | 0.09 | +22.22% | CW | 142,000 | 20,000 | +31.69% | 0.00% |
*Two years ago – severe floods washed out last year’s race