TV News: Weekend USA Motorsports TV Ratings Sept 14-15
USA TV Ratings for this past weekend. NASCAR was in Watkins Glen, F1 was in Azerbaijan, NHRA was in Maple Grove and IndyCar had their big finale in Nashville that flopped miserably on TV
TV Rating Analysis
The NFL season kicked in full force, which had a negative impact on all motorsports
NHRA
Getting a big boost by following the NFL, FOX drew 1.257 million viewers for the NHRA Finals from Maple Grove, PA, down 16.42% from last year, also on FOX, but still the largest motorsports TV audience of the weekend
NASCAR
The USA Network got 1.809 million viewers for the NASCAR Cup playoff race at Watkins Glen, down 21.7% from last year, also on the USA Network.
The Xfinity race on Saturday was down a similar percentage
Formula 1
The Azerbaijan GP F1 race last Sunday morning averaged 865K viewers on ESPN, down 9.7% from 958K last year (when the race was run in April). The drop was far less than all other forms of motorsports
It was still the third most-watched edition of the race on record
TV Viewership Peaked 8:30am – 8:45am with 1,006,000 viewers
The F1 race drew 46% of its viewers in the all-important 18-49 age group, dwarfing all other forms of motorsports and their aging fanbase
Through 17 races – the F1 season is up 1 pct over ’23 season to date and up 4 pct over ’23 full-season avg
IndyCar
The race that hardly anyone watched – NBC got only 483,000 viewers for IndyCar’s big finale in Nashville, down a massive 56.6% from last year, also on NBC. Surprisingly, the IndyCar race on a major network like NBC, drew far less viewers than F1 in the wee hours of Sunday morning on a cable channel.
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 |
| FOX | NHRA Finals | Maple Grove | 1,257,000 | 210,000 | 17% | 0.68 | 0.80 | -15.00% | FOX | 1,504,000 | 460,000 | -16.42% | -54.35% |
| USA | NASCAR Cup Race | Watkins Glen | 1,809,000 | 340,000 | 19% | 1.01 | 1.30 | -22.31% | USA | 2,310,000 | 403,000 | -21.69% | -15.63% |
| ESPN | F1 Azerbaijan GP | Baku | 865,000 | 395,000 | 46% | 0.48 | 0.53 | -9.43% | ESPN | 958,000 | 433,000 | -9.71% | -8.78% |
| USA | NASCAR Xfinity Race | Watkins Glen | 778,000 | 150,000 | 19% | 0.45 | 0.60 | -25.00% | USA | 981,000 | 215,000 | -20.69% | -30.23% |
| NBC | IndyCar Race | Nashville | 483,000 | 90,000 | 19% | 0.33 | 0.70 | -52.86% | NBC | 1,113,000 | 195,000 | -56.60% | -53.85% |