The IndyCar Series raced at the Thermal Club last weekend. There were high hopes for a record viewership for the event, considering that the season-opener in St. Petersburg had attracted 1,417,000 viewers on the primary FOX Network. But unfortunately, the race went head-to-head with the Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami, and the numbers fell greatly.
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There was a 50% drop in viewership for the race after it clashed directly with NASCAR on Fox Sports 1. The two events started within minutes of each other and put motorsports fans in a huge dilemma. To add to this, FOX lost its signal for 20 minutes in the middle of its IndyCar Series broadcast. The blackout was due to a power issue in the production truck.
Those who were watching were redirected to the Cup Series event. Mike Joy welcomed them, “We want to welcome those of you who have been watching the IndyCar race on FOX. They are having technical difficulties, so we welcome to FOX audience to our NASCAR telecast from Homestead-Miami Speedway.”
When the dust settled, the open-wheel race had just 704,000 viewers. The Cup Series event, on the other hand, secured 2.464 million viewers. This irked driver and pit reporter Parker Kligerman a great deal.
He wrote on X, “Being on at the same time as NASCAR should be a crime. I tried watching both but its damn hard to have two races on at once and enjoy both. Indycar succeeding is better for all motorsports, but we all need to work together.”
Being on at the same time as NASCAR should be a crime.
I tried watching both but its damn hard to have two races on at once and enjoy both.
Indycar succeeding is better for all motorsports, but we all need to work together. https://t.co/XubOXz4UDG
— Parker Kligerman (@pkligerman) March 25, 2025
Notably, even the Xfinity Series (1.160 million viewers) and the Craftsman Truck Series races (906,000 viewers) had a better viewership than the IndyCar Series races. The Formula 1 Chinese GP was broadcast on ESPN and had 824,000 viewers. Of all the big dogs, IndyCar performed the worst. The troubles don’t end there.
The next event for the series is scheduled to be raced at Long Beach. It starts roughly 90 minutes after the upcoming Cup Series race at the Bristol Motor Speedway. The events will overlap to a certain extent. So, officials from all sides would hope to avoid such extensive damage.
