TV News: IndyCar Thermal Cub TV Rating down 10.7% from 2024

Fox got 704,000 viewers for Sunday’s NTT IndyCar race at The Thermal Club, down 10.7% from 788,000 last year’s $1 Million Challenge broadcast on NBC.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

There was a 50% drop in viewership from the opening race in St. Petersburg on FOX, and the 2nd race of the year at the Thermal Club. Why? Mainly because the NASCAR viewers did not help this IndyCar race by joining in early to catch their race.

The club put up 5,000 tickets for the general public to attend, but they were still advertising them for sale on race day.

What has to be particularly embarrassing for IndyCar is the fact that the Chinese GP F1 race broadcast at 3:00am ET Sunday morning when the entire country was asleep, drew 824,000 viewers, 15% more viewers than the IndyCar race despite being on a cable channel (ESPN) vs IndyCar being broadcast on a linear channel (FOX).

Motorsports viewership in America last weekend:

1) NASCAR Cup (FS1): 2.464 million viewers
2) NASCAR Xfinity (The CW): 1.160 million
3) NASCAR Trucks (Fox): 906,000
4) F1 (ESPN): 824,000 (3:00am in the morning)
5) IndyCar (Fox): 704,000
6) NHRA (FS1): 669,000