TV News: Weekend USA Motorsports TV Ratings
Motorsports TV Ratings for races broadcast in the USA from last weekend. Data is limited because Nielsen has cut off our usual sources of the data.
–by Mark Cipolloni–
TV Rating Analysis
NASCAR
NASCAR’s rain impacted Cup race in New Hampshire drew 1.9 million viewers on the USA Network, up 84.11% from last year’s race that got pushed to Monday
Formula 1
ESPN’s live telecast of the Formula 1 Spanish GP on Sunday morning 9:00am ET June 23, had an average audience of 1.1 million viewers, peaking at 1.2 million between 10:15-10:30 a.m. ET.
The exciting race was won by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen over McLaren’s Lando Norris.
- Viewership was up 5.77% from last year’s Spanish GP, which averaged 1.0 million (also on ESPN).
- The F1 race dwarfed both NASCAR and IndyCar in the all-important 18-49 year old age group – this age group is what TV advertisers most want to reach
- It was the second-largest audience on record for the Spanish GP
- It was the fifth consecutive F1 race in 2024 to have year-over-year audience gains over the 2023 version of the race.
- The five consecutive races were Japan, Miami, Monaco, Canada and Spain. (China and Imola not run in 2023)
- Through 10 races, the 2024 F1 season is averaging 1,334,652 viewers per race, up 8 percent over the 2023 full-season average of 1,239,974.
- F1 qualifying on Saturday, June 23, averaged 573,000 viewers on ESPN2 (9:54-11:10 a.m. ET).
IndyCar
NBC Sports switched IndyCar to CNBC after NASCAR ran late on the USA Network due to a rain delay. As a result, the TV broadcast only drew 150,000 viewers, down 72.12% from last year on NBC. If you include streaming data, the race drew 183,000 viewers, but if we add streaming data to the other races, they too would be higher. The number of people who stream races is a small fraction of the broadcast numbers.
The 183,000 viewers is the hardcore IndyCar fanbase which, of course, watched the race even though it was moved from the USA Network to CNBC. There are few people who channel surf to CNBC on weekends; hence the numbers only include IndyCar’s most ardent fans.
By contrast, over 70 million fanatical F1 fans around the world watched the F1 Spanish GP.
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 |
| USA | NASCAR Cup Race | New Hampshire | 1,900,000 | 340,000 | 18% | 1.07 | 0.61 | 75.41% | USA | 1,032,000 | 185,000 | 84.11% | -81.62% |
| ESPN | F1 Spanish GP | Barcelona | 1,100,000 | 465,000 | 42% | 0.62 | 0.59 | 5.08% | ESPN | 1,040,000 | 453,000 | 5.77% | 2.65% |
| USA | IndyCar Race | Laguna Seca | *150,000 | 28,000 | 19% | 0.08 | 0.34 | -76.47% | NBC | 538,000 | 85,000 | -72.12% | -67.06% |
*183,000 if you include streaming, which the other race data does not