Rescheduled Nashville IndyCar race takes the expected ratings hit

A World Cup Final that went into extra time, local rain and lightning, and the eventual postponement of the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix from Sunday to Monday at Nashville Speedway conspired against months of effort to use the global sporting event airing on FOX as a vehicle to uplift the NTT IndyCar Series.

Owing to the setbacks, an average audience of 775,000 viewers tuned in to watch Alex Palou drive to victory Monday afternoon on FOX, which ranks as the second-lowest number of the season after 656,000 were recorded for May’s Indianapolis Grand Prix.

The 775,000 fell short of last year’s Nashville network audience of 1,142,000, which wasn’t unexpected, and peaked with 882,000 viewers late in the shortened 225-lap contest.

But thanks to the World Cup lead-in, Sunday’s pre-race broadcast and nearly two hours of vamping while waiting to see if the poor weather would subside and allow the race to be run was met with the largest audience of the season outside of the Indianapolis 500, with an average of 2,878,000 viewers watching from 7:20-9:02pm ET.

Altogether through 12 of 18 races, IndyCar on FOX is averaging 1,884,000 viewers per event, which is an improvement of 17 percent from 2025, FOX’s first season covering the series, and up 49 percent over 2024 when IndyCar was on NBC and its array of streaming and cable platforms.

The series has the next two weekends off before making a sustained push to the finish line starting at the Portland Grand Prix on Aug. 9.