TV News: USA weekend Motorsports TV Viewers/TV Ratings (Update)
The NASCAR Cup Series TV Viewer numbers from Watkins Glen, NY, on the USA Network have now been added to the results below.
August 13, 2025
TV Viewers for this past weekend’s major motorsports broadcasts in the USA. IndyCar was at Portland Raceway and NASCAR was at Watkins Glen
NASCAR
The Sunday NASCAR Cup race at Watkins Glen drew 1.85 million TV viewers on the USA Network, up 2.3% from 2024
NASCAR’s 2025 average Cup TV viewership is down 12.5% from last year
Network race audiences have dropped 55%, while cable has gained 22%
The trend of an average of over two million viewers watching the Cup contests every weekend has been relevant in the sport for a while. However, the Watkins Glen weekend was the fifth example of a deviation from the average number this year.
The Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen, televised on The CW, attracted 1,096,000 viewers, marking the most-watched Xfinity race at the track since 2018. This represents a 41% increase compared to last year’s race and a 54% increase compared to the 2024 Darlington race. The race, won by Connor Zilisch, also saw a peak viewership of 1,468,000 during the closing laps.
IndyCar
708,000 TV Viewers tuned into Sunday’s BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland IndyCar race on Fox to watch Will Power win the race and Alex Palou lock up his 4th IndyCar title in 5 years. It was up 86% from last year when the USA Network Cable channel only drew 380,068 but still far below even the NASCAR Xfinity race on the obscure CW channel.
The first 31 minutes were broadcast on FS1 and drew only 151,000 viewers. The broadcast peaked at 945,000 TV viewers at the end of the race.
So far in its debut season as IndyCar’s exclusive partner, the 15 FOX races have delivered an average of 1,416,000 viewers per broadcast.
While the viewership numbers of the IndyCar race were lower than those of NASCAR, they had an interesting catch.
For IndyCar races this season, even the lowest viewership has not fallen below the 500,000 count. And though it may not seem much, the series could not achieve such figures in over a decade.