37% YoY increase on last year’s season finale at DarlingtonIndyCar averages 779k viewers for penultimate race of 2025 at Milwaukee
Nascar averaged 3.3 million viewers for its regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway on NBC.
That is a 37 per cent audience increase on last year’s season finale, which was held at Darlington Raceway. Last year’s race at Daytona – the penultimate race of 2024 – averaged 3.5 million viewers, six per cent higher than this season.
The result ends a streak of 16 straight races averaging below three million viewers, Nascar’s longest run on record.
With the playoffs now set to get underway, it means that the Cup Series has averaged 2.66 million viewers for the 2025 regular season, a 15 per cent year-over-year (YoY) decrease.
A drop for Nascar had been widely expected given the shift to new broadcast partners, Prime Video and TNT, and the significant reduction in races on commercial television.
There is better news in the underlying data. Fox Sports saw a 19 per cent YoY audience increase on the main Fox channel and a six per cent increase on FS1 for its portion of the season.
Prime Video, meanwhile, delivered double-digit percentage increases in key demographics, as well as the youngest Cup Series audience in more than a decade. TNT also saw a 48 per cent increase in the 18 to 34 demographic.
Still, this is the first Nascar regular season to average fewer than three million viewers, so series executives will hope this marks the nadir of its new broadcast partnership before viewership begins to turn in the right direction.
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With the IndyCar championship wrapped up, the expectation was that the series’ final two races would struggle for viewers. However, the penultimate race of the 2025 season at Milwaukee Mile averaged 779,000 viewers on Fox, a six per cent YoY increase.
That is IndyCar’s highest audience since 781,000 viewers watched the series’ visit to Road America in June. Seven of the last eight races have now averaged between that mark and 700,000 viewers.
While the new broadcast partnership with Fox may not have reached the expected heights, it underscores the loyalty of the fanbase – a foundation the series can build on.
With one race remaining, IndyCar is averaging 1.2 million viewers in 2025, which means this season is likely to be IndyCar’s best year since 2012.
However, taking away this year’s exceptional viewership at the Indianapolis 500, the 2025 season is averaging just over 811,000 viewers. This falls below the 2023 season as it stands.
