“Take It Seriously”: NASCAR Fans Reeling Over Declining TV Ratings Amid Playoff Chaos

Remember the month of June? Amazon Prime brought streaming options for the first time to NASCAR fans, and it was a grand success. Between the Coca-Cola 600 and the Great American Getaway 400, fans were enthralled by Prime’s post-race coverage, double-box format, and many more features. Prime recorded an average viewership of 2.16 million per race. However, the media partner currently hosting NASCAR races is presenting a stark contrast to Prime’s performance.

This week witnessed both NASCAR and the NFL seeking higher ratings. Sadly for motorsports fans, the latter got the upper hand. All 32 fan bases thought they were still Super Bowl-bound, leading to a record viewership across the board. What is more, NASCAR suffered a significant defeat.

NASCAR viewership hits a new low

Since NBC Sports hopped aboard the Cup Series schedule in Iowa, things have been going wrong. The sport registered 1.85 million viewers when USA Network, NBC’s partner, visited Watkins Glen. It marked the Cup Series’ third-lowest audience of the year. It is also the lowest audience recorded on USA Network since 1.03 million people watched NASCAR’s 2023 visit to New Hampshire. This drab result continued at Richmond Raceway, where NASCAR averaged 1.39 million viewers, the USA Network’s fourth-lowest regular-season audience since 2020. Similarly, Gateway was also affected by the media partner’s drab streak.

Last Sunday, Denny Hamlin led for a race-high 75 laps en route to his first Gateway victory. As spectacular as the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran’s win was, the ratings of the Enjoy Illinois 300 were equally disappointing. Journalist Adam Stern updated the shocking decline on X: “@USANetwork got a 0.82 rating and 1.525 million viewers for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race @WWTRaceway, down from 1.8 million for last year’s second playoff race (@WGI) and from 2.5 million for the 2024 event at the same venue on @FS1, though that was held in June.”

The NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Gateway on the CW Network, however, continued a strong trend of season-long numbers. It was just the second race this season, not affected by the weather, and did not reach a million viewers at 989,000. The Cup Series’ defeat starkly contrasted the NFL’s viewership ratings, reaching record milestones. CBS on Sunday averaged 23.9 million viewers during its 4:25 national window, and FOX hit 17.9 million. The first stat was a 27-year high, and the FOX number was a 10-year high, posing greater challenges to NASCAR.

Amidst NASCAR’s shocking TV downfall at Gateway, fans were left buzzing with discontent.

Fans dissect the real problems

In 2024, NBC Sports performed significantly well. NASCAR recorded its highest viewership for the Brickyard 400 race at Indianapolis in four years. What is more, the sport also averaged 3.15 million viewers under NBC. Since the media platform has shifted its tasks to USA Network, one fan traced the problem there. They wrote, “NBC should honestly show all the playoff races on NBC. If you want us to take it seriously than they need to take it seriously and show it on NBC. Throwing it on USA builds zero momentum up to Phoenix, and clearly people are stopping to give a shit about the product.” Another fan went ballistic on the USA Network’s performance. It is in its fourth year as an alternate channel for NBC, and fans are still not satisfied. The comment read, “USA network is singlehandedly killing the sport.”

Somebody else highlighted other glaring problems. The Next-Gen car, introduced in 2022, continues to attract protests due to its lackluster product with passing problems. Then, NASCAR’s playoff format has also dropped in popularity after the 2024 championship. So the fan wrote, “I can’t speak for everyone, but I can give my 2 cents for why I didn’t watch. This car is a snooze fest. And I just don’t want to dedicate 3-4 hours of my day watching a product (the playoffs) I just don’t believe in. I’ve been a nascar fan almost my entire 35 years on this planet. Instead of defending this product, I’m choosing to spend my Sundays differently than I have in the past.”

The fact that the Xfinity Series ranked better than Cup shocked one fan. NASCAR’s second tier features almost half the purse that Cup offers, and yet it performed better in viewership. The fan wrote, “We’re trending towards an Xfinity race getting more viewers than a Cup race.” The sheer disparity in numbers between one year and the next made a fan’s jaw drop. They wrote about NASCAR’s Gateway performance, “Ouch. Down around 275,000 viewers. 15% decrease YOY is bad no matter how you slice it.”

Evidently, NASCAR needs to get on a war footing to retain viewership. With the 2025 playoffs underway, let’s see if the popularity continues to sink or not.