TV News: Weekend TV Ratings, NASCAR Down, F1 and IndyCar Up (Update)

We now have the IndyCar TV numbers from Mid-Ohio last weekend, and the data below has been updated.

TV Ratings from last weekend’s major motorsports telecasts in the USA.  NASCAR was in Chicago, F1 was at Silverstone and IndyCar was at Mid-Ohio.

TV Rating Analysis

NASCAR – Down Big

NBC got 3.87 million viewers for Sunday’s Chicago Street Race (including streaming); down 17% from nearly 4.8 million in 2023 (4.62 million without streaming data).  The race was impacted by rain both years.

Formula 1 New Record

ESPN2’s live telecast of the Formula 1 British Grand Prix on Sunday, July 7, set a record for the largest U.S. television audience ever for the event – the telecast from 9:53 a.m. until 11:52 a.m. ET had an average audience of 1.3 million viewers, peaking at 1.5 million between 11:15-11:30 a.m. ET.

• Viewership was up 10 percent from last year’s British Grand Prix, which averaged 1.1 million (also on ESPN2).
• The previous record audience for the British Grand Prix was 1.2 million, set in 2022.
• This was the fourth race this year in which an event viewership record was set (Miami, Monaco, Canada, British). The Miami Grand Prix in early May set the all-time F1 record for a live telecast with 3.1 million average viewers.
• This was the largest audience ever to watch a live F1 race on ESPN2.
• In the last seven races in 2024, this was the sixth race to have year-over-year audience gains over the 2023 version of the race.
  • Five consecutive races had year-over-year gains: Japan, Miami, Monaco, Canada and Spain. (China and Imola were not run in 2023)
  • Austria’s audience was essentially even with 2023.
• Through 11 races, the 2024 F1 season is averaging 1,340,200 viewers per race, up 8 percent over the 2023 full-season average of 1,239,974 and is approaching the full-season record average of 1,361,506 that was set in 2022.
• F1 qualifying on Saturday, July 6, averaged 701,000 viewers on ESPN2 (9:54-11:19 a.m. ET), up from 685,000 in 2023 and 664,000 in 2022.
• 6 of the last 7 comparable F1 races have had a year-over-year increase.

Once again, F1 dwarfed NASCAR and IndyCar with 42% of the viewers tuned in from the all-important 18-49 age bracket.

IndyCar – Up on NBC vs USA

IndyCar Series action from Mid-Ohio averaged 1.25 million on NBC — the top audience of the season outside the Indy 500.  Why? Because the race led into the NASCAR Cup Series Chicago Street Race which helped to increase the IndyCar rating significantly, but slightly less than F1 on a cable channel (vs NBC for IndyCar) on a Sunday morning.

Pato O’Ward’s win, which peaked with 1.60 million (including streaming), increased 69% from last year on the USA Network (739K) as expected.

TV Rating Data