IndyCar race day TV viewership down by half at Thermal Club

The IndyCar Series’ race at The Thermal Club delivered an average of 704,000 viewers via FOX on Sunday, down significantly from the 1,417,000 viewers who tuned in for the first race at St. Petersburg on the series’ new television partner.

The 50.3 percent drop in audience size came while IndyCar went head-to-head with FOX’s broadcast of the NASCAR Cup race from Miami-Homestead on its FOX Sports 1 cable channel, the NCAA "March Madness" college basketball tournaments, and also while the middle portion of the race was “off the air from Thermal for about 21 minutes and went to a simulcast of FS1’s NASCAR Cup Series race due to a power outage in the truck," according to FOX.

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IndyCar’s non-championship visit to Thermal in 2024, which aired on NBC, captured an audience of 788,214 viewers, an 11 percent improvement over FOX’s first presentation from the private road course in Southern California. Last year’s broadcast on NBC did not have direct competition of NASCAR.

Through its first two races, FOX is averaging 1,052,000 viewers, an improvement of 21 percent compared to the average of 871,000 generated across St. Petersburg and Thermal last season.

While losing half its race day audience from St. Petersburg comes as a shock, FOX more than doubled its numbers from the opening event during Friday's first practice session which had 168,000 viewers on FS1, a 77 percent improvement over the 95,000 who tuned in on the Friday for FOX's IndyCar debut on FS1.