TV News: USA weekend motorsports TV Viewers/TV Ratings (Update)

As promised, the Formula 1 Dutch GP TV viewer numbers would be updated below as soon as we had them.

TV viewers from last weekend’s major races – NASCAR was at Darlington for the Southern 500, F1 was at Zandvoort for the Dutch GP and IndyCar was in Nashville for their season finale.

NASCAR

The Southern 500 on the USA Network drew 1.88 million TV viewers, down 21.7% from 2.4 million on the USA Network in 2024.

One reason the ratings for the Darlington race dropped could be it was going up against the Miami vs. Notre Dame game that aired on ABC. According to Programming Insider, the game drew 10.404 million viewers. Miami vs. Notre Dame ran from 7:37 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. ET, and the Darlington race ran from 6:09 p.m. to 10:05 p.m. ET.

Formula 1

The Dutch Grand Prix on ESPN (Aug. 31) drew 1.2 million average TV viewers, up 19% over 1.0 million in 2024.

It was the most watched Dutch GP ever (previous record 1.1 in 2022). The broadcast peaked at 1.3 million between 10:30-10:45 a.m. ET

507K viewers in the all important P18-49 demo tuned in (42.25%), far outdistancing NASCAR and IndyCar below 20%.

Of the 15 F1 races held so far this year, every race except for Miami has been up YOY in viewership.

Nine of the 15 races run so far this year have set event audience records (Australia, China, Monaco, Spain, Canada, Austria, Britain, Belgium, Dutch).

IndyCar

Fox got 1.142 million TV viewers for Sunday’s NTT IndyCar Series season finale from Nashville, up 136% from 483,000 last year on woke NBC when the last race went up against the NFL.

FOX Sports coverage of the 17-race 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season scored in a big way, averaging 1,362,000 TV viewers according to Nielsen Media Research, a +27% year-to-year increase from 2024 and the most-watched season in 17 years. In 2025, the NTT INDYCAR Series has recorded the most audience growth to date of any sport averaging at least a million viewers.

“In a season loaded with both massive successes and key learnings, we couldn’t be more excited about the potential we see in the FOX INDYCAR relationship as we close out the 2025 season together,” said Eric Shanks, FOX Sports CEO and Executive Producer. “Expanding on our connection with INDYCAR for next year and beyond, projects already are well underway to keep this momentum going at full speed.”

“In partnership with FOX Sports, our viewership growth curve is the most impressive in all of sports,” said Mark Miles, President & CEO of Penske Entertainment. “We’re incredibly pleased with the first year of this relationship and know we can kick things into an even higher gear moving forward.”