Correction: This story was updated to clarify that Samba’s data reflects U.S. household TV reach and to add new information provided by Liberty Media, F1’s parent company.

Although Formula 1 continues to report strong U.S. viewer engagement in 2026, the motorsport giant is experiencing a decline in household TV reach, according to data analytics firm Samba.

F1’s household reach is down since leaving ESPN for Apple TV following the 2025 season, according to the data provided to USA TODAY Sports. Samba gathers its data using content recognition software installed across 14.4 million smart TVs nationwide.

But the TV numbers don’t paint the full viewership picture. Liberty Media, F1’s parent company, said it saw growth in total hours watched across Apple TV’s various platforms.

“Our partnership with Apple continues yielding positive engagement,” F1’s President & CEO Stefano Domenicali said in a statement provided to USA TODAY Sports, “with viewership up year-over-year, season-to-date and total hours watched up 13%.”

While F1’s report suggests a loyal fanbase, Samba contends there may be fewer total eyeballs on the product. Most notably, the Miami Grand Prix’s household reach was down 68% this year compared to last year, while the Monaco Grand Prix was down 66%.

Eight of the nine races analyzed this season have experienced household reach declines, according to Samba’s data. The lone outlier was the Japanese Grand Prix, which did not change.

The first three races were comparatively stable — Australia was down 4%, China was down 1% and Japan was unchanged — while every race since Miami suffered double-digit drops, the data says.

“One hypothesis our team has for this finding is that F1 fans may have activated an Apple TV free trial to be able to access the F1 race,” Samba’s vice president of measurement science Alyson Sprague said in a statement to USA TODAY. “But that they didn’t find enough value in the trial to continue on as a paid customer.”

Apple TV currently offers a one-week trial for new subscribers. After that, the streaming service costs $12.99 a month. Apple also says all practice sessions and select race weekends are available without an Apple TV subscription.

ESPN, meanwhile, operates on the traditional broadcasting format and is included in cable packages. It’s also available on digital services like Fubo and YouTube TV.

Plus, the Miami, Monaco and Canadian Grand Prix last year were broadcast on ESPN’s sister network ABC. That enabled those races to rack up an average viewership total of roughly two million or more each, per data from Nielsen.

The ESPN broadcasts for grand prix like Japan and Austria in 2025, on the other hand, picked up around one million viewers or less apiece.

Nielsen’s average audience figures are not directly comparable to Samba’s household-reach metric, but the Nielsen data provides important distribution context.

ESPN reaches over 60 million households, per 2025 data from Nielsen, while ABC reaches almost all U.S. television households. Apple TV numbers are harder to pin down, but they were at around 45 million subscriptions in 2024, per a report by The Information.

F1’s reported uptick in total hours watched is backed up by Samba’s data. Samba said the average number of minutes watched per household was up 127% for the Australian Grand Prix, while Monaco was up 113%. This suggests that while fewer households may be watching, those who are remain engaged.

Samba also reported 30% of 2026 F1 viewers hadn’t used Apple TV at all during the second half of 2025 — representing an influx of new viewers for the streamer that may matter more than putting up big numbers for specific events.

The streamer is also using F1 to broaden its stable of sports offerings: as of 2026, Apple TV currently carries every Major League Soccer game, and it streams an MLB doubleheader weekly on Friday nights. Its deal with F1 runs through the 2030 season.

Methodology: USA TODAY compiled this data from Samba, which said it gathers viewership data from “its proprietary Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology from tens of millions of opted-in Smart TVs resolved to nationally-representative panels. Samba’s ACR is integrated at the chipset level across 24 of the top Smart TVs sold in more than 100 countries globally.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: F1 household reach has declined since Apple TV move, per report

Reporting by Jared Beilby, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect