Q: Your reply to Shawn in MD last week about Blaney and Newgarden doing “the double” makes sense for Penske. However, since Penske bought IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, shouldn’t they have become his main priority, as to what’s good for them, and his race team becomes secondary?
Jim, Ontario, Canada
MP: I hear you, but Roger has owned IndyCar and IMS since 2020. He entered his first Indy 500 with Penske Racing in 1969, so if I had to guess where priorities fall, it’s on the side of the racing team he’s owned and run for 50-plus years. It’s clear that between the series and the speedway, he’s gone all-in on improving the track and its grounds. That’s an easy, but not inexpensive, endeavor for someone with a lifetime of developing brick-and-mortar businesses.
Q: Can you give context comparing current audience size/viewership between F1, IndyCar and NASCAR in the U.S.?
This is obviously anecdotal, but outside of May (I’m in my mid 20s and live in Indianapolis) it feels like F1 has a larger audience than IndyCar, and I don’t know anyone that talks about NASCAR. Reading the Mailbag, it seems like the audience size NASCAR, IndyCar, then F1 in descending order.
Will, Indy
MP: You’re onto something with the first item, Will.
IndyCar and NASCAR have something that F1 does not in terms of races that heavily skew its annual viewing audience size and averages upwards with the Indy 500 and Daytona 500. F1’s big event is Monaco, but it’s not a giant ratings outlier like Indy and Daytona, so what you get for F1 with per-event and annual averages lacks any skewing. It’s worth noting that for IndyCar, its one streamed race — the Honda Indy Toronto, which has a tiny audience — isn’t counted in its averages, which does skew things to where only 16 of its 17 races are calculated in its averages.
IndyCar and NASCAR are both on NBC, so we have NBC’s reporting to use, and ESPN did the same for F1, so the answers are below.
INDYCAR: NBC Sports’ 2023 coverage of the NTT IndyCar Series delivered the most-watched IndyCar season in 12 years (since 2011, NBC Sports’ most-watched season on record, and the most-streamed season ever.
The 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season, headlined by Alex Palou’s second career series championship and Josef Newgarden’s Indy 500 victory, averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 1.32 million viewers across NBC, USA Network, Peacock and NBC Sports digital platforms. This ranks as the most-watched season for the IndyCar Series since 2011 (1.39 million viewers, NBCSN/ABC) and the best in NBC Sports history, up 2% vs. last year’s then-record viewership (1.30 million viewers, NBC/USA Network/NBC Sports Digital). TAD is based on data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.
Half of the season’s 16 races on television delivered a TAD of more than 1 million viewers, tying last year for the highest mark since 2008. NBC’s 13 races posted a TAD of 1.47 million viewers, up 4% vs. last year’s coverage on NBC (1.42 million, 14 races).
Overall viewership was led by the Indianapolis 500, which delivered a TAD of 4.93 million viewers across NBC and Peacock. The race also had a 13 share (percentage of homes watching television at the time of the race), its best in 15 years (2008; 13 share).
CUP: The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series on NBC, USA Network, Peacock and NBC Sports Digital delivered a Total Audience Delivery of 2.47 million viewers across 20 races, up vs. comparable coverage in 2022 (2.45 million viewers), according to data provided by the Nielsen Company and Adobe Analytics.
Viewership gains were driven by NBC Sports’ coverage of the inaugural Cup Series race on the streets of Chicago on NBC and Peacock, which delivered a TAD of 4.79 million viewers to rank as NBC Sports’ most-watched NASCAR race in six years and the second-most watched race of the season behind the Daytona 500 on Fox.
Overall, NASCAR Cup Series viewership on the NBC broadcast network was up 3% vs. 2022, including last Sunday’s championship race won by Ryan Blaney, which averaged a TAD of 3.03 million viewers.
Additional Cup Series viewership highlights:
16 of 20 Cup Series races averaged a TAD of at least two million viewers, up from 15 of 20 races in 2022.
F1: The 2023 Formula 1 world championship season on ESPN platforms was the second most-viewed F1 season ever on U.S. television.
An average of 1.11 million viewers watched the 22 race telecasts on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC during the season, second only to last year’s record-setting average of 1.21 million. Last year’s average included the 2.6 million average viewership for the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, the largest live audience ever for a Formula 1 race on U.S. television.
The season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Nov. 26 attracted an average audience of 927,000 viewers, including the race telecast on ESPN and the F1 Kids alternate telecast on ESPNU.
The 2023 season included numerous superlatives:
Three of the four largest live American TV audiences on record for races: (Miami, 1.96M; Monaco, 1.79M; Canada, 1.76M).
The Monaco Grand Prix aired live on ABC for the first time and attracted its largest live audience on record (1.79M for the race).
Eight races set U.S. television viewership records: (Saudi Arabia, Monaco, Canada, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Singapore, Mexico).
The inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix on Nov. 19 attracted an average audience of 1.3M despite a 1am ET starting time.
The growth of Formula 1 television audiences in the United States since the championship returned to ESPN platforms in 2018 remains a sports success story. Average viewership has essentially doubled from 554K in 2018 to 1.11 million in 2023, a total increase of nearly 100 percent and an average increase of 15 percent per year.
Q: I read that you feel that streaming is the way to go for lots of sporting events. I’ll have to disagree somewhat. Look at what is happening to the Regional Sports Networks (RSN). Bally/Diamond went bankrupt last March. They likely won’t be around after MLB next year. It appears the stuff that was on the RSN’s are headed to over the air and streaming. Broadcast channels second, third and fourth channels are perfect for this.
The RSNs were losing lots of what was easy money as folks cut the cords. The cord-cutters were not buying the RSN streaming services either, it seems. As a long-time worker in the broadcast sports business, it seems headed full circle. When I started in the business there was only over the air broadcast TV for sports, mostly on weekends. Stations only had a single channel, so putting on a sporting event often meant not running a lucrative network show. Then along came super stations including Regional Sports Networks like ESPN which all ended up on cable and satellite TV.
The TV viewing world changed quickly. It is changing again. Eventually the internet and streaming will be overloaded like the cell phone world is starting to experience. People would be wise to get a good outside HD antenna for now and then. I have had mine for a couple of years.
Pete Pfankuch, Wisconsin
MP: Not sure I have “feelings” on streaming. More of recognizing where we’re at and where it’s going. It’s been here for a while and only continues to grow; this genie isn’t going back into the bottle. If that somehow changes in the future, we’ll adapt, but with NBC doubling IndyCar’s streamed races for 2024 and NASCAR entering the streaming-only party for the first time with some of its Cup races next year, that’s what we have: More, not less.