Indycar sees dramatic loss in viewership for Thermal Club race
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St. Petersburg vs Thermal Club TV numbers; Indycar lost half their viewers
The 2025 Indycar season opened earlier this month in St. Petersburg, Florida. The race brought in 1,417,000 viewers on March 2.
March 23 brought in round two of the 2025 season via The Thermal Club. Surprisingly, Indycar lost more than half of it’s viewing audience from the season opener just weeks prior.
How did this happen?
Sunday’s Indycar race was in direct competition with the NASCAR race. The event took place at the same time as the NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Only 704,000 tuned into Sunday race at the California track via FOX. That’s a drop of over 50% from just weeks ago. Meanwhile, 2,464,000 racing fans were tuned into the NASCAR Cup Series race on FS1 at the same time.
Friday’s NASCAR Truck Series race actually brought in more viewers than the Indycar race. 906k tuned into the Truck event.
Technical difficulties
Technical difficulty likely added to the disappointing numbers. On lap 28, the Indycar broadcast on FOX completely froze. The race was then sent to an abrupt commercial.
After the commercial break, fans tuned into the Indycar race on FOX were welcomed to coverage of the NASCAR race, which was being shown on FS1.
"We want to welcome those of you who have been watching the IndyCar race on FOX," analyst Mike Joy told the NASCAR audience. "They are having technical difficulties, so we welcome to FOX audience to our NASCAR telecast from Homestead-Miami Speedway."
Around lap 40, the issues were resolved, "We want to thank you so much for sticking with us through the technical difficulties that we've experienced here at the track today," Will Buxton.
Buxton added, "A total loss of power here at the Thermal Club. Thanks of course to our friends in NASCAR, and our thanks to you for sticking with us."
Scott McLaughlin vs Devlin Defrancesco (Video)
Motorsport TV Viewership
March 21-23, 2025
NASCAR Cup Series
(FS1)
Viewers: 2.464 million viewers
NASCAR Xfinity Series
(The CW)
Viewers: 1.160 million
NASCAR Truck Series
(Fox)
Viewers: 906,000
F1
(ESPN)
Viewers: 824,000
IndyCar
(Fox)
Viewers: 704,000
NHRA
(FS1)
Viewers: 669,000
Links
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