FACT CHECK: Did NASCAR Viewership Really Improve in 2024 Over the Previous Year?

The common trending belief across NASCAR is that the sport is just beginning to stand on its feet again after a long period of downfall in popularity. The sanctioning body has taken multiple steps towards helping that process. But just how effective have all the initiatives, such as Netflix’s Full Speed, been in translating to race viewership?

2024 kicked off with bad news for TV viewership and ratings, with the L.A. Clash and the Daytona 500 both getting impacted by rain. Several other races throughout the season faced similar fates as well due to bad weather. A proper gist of the improvement in numbers from 2023 can be understood only by removing such weather-impacted races from comparison.

The Daily Downforce carried out a brief research to note that the average viewership across all 39 races in the season (without the weather-impacted events like the Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600, and the Chicago Street Race) fell at 2.780 million per race. The total viewership for the 31 races that were considered was 83.40 million.

In 2023, these 31 races brought in a total of 78.072 million viewers, with an average of 2.602 million viewers per race. The difference in average viewership falls to 0.178 million. This is a 6.825% year-on-year increase. In line with the expectations, the date reflects a boost in the numbers when weather-impacted races are removed.

Has the overall TV viewership improved from 2023?

For the sake of the research, the numbers from eight key races were removed. How do things change when they are added to the mix? All races including the L.A. Clash, The Daytona Duels, and the All-Star race brought in a total of 110.685 million viewers this season. That’s presents an average of 2.838 million viewers per race.

In 2023, there were a total of 109.362 million viewers, which averaged 2.804 million viewers per race. The average viewership difference is a tiny 0.034 million. A win is a win, regardless. NASCAR also gained from a relatively healthy run in the playoffs with no race affected by weather. This resulted in a 5% playoff viewership increase from 2023.

The second race in Talladega was the most-viewed playoff event of the season with 3.13 million viewers. The finale in Phoenix brought in 2.9 million viewers. Hopes are that these numbers lift themselves further in 2025 with the new media TV deals that have been charted out.