What the data says about Nascar’s run on Amazon Prime Video

When Nascar announced its new broadcast deal in November 2023, it was historic for several reasons.

Yes, a record number of broadcasters collectively paying record annual fees of US$1.1 billion was impressive. This made for increased visibility at an unprecedented financial rate, but increased visibility actually meant fewer viewers.

It’s an oxymoron but perennially true for any sport attempting to widen their audience. Increasing the number of broadcast partners will introduce new viewers but also alienate some of the existing audience in the process. It’s an unfortunate reality in modern sport.

Ask an established fan to jump between four different broadcasters, which most saliently translates as four different subscriptions, and you’re not going to get a good reaction.

Think of it as one step back to take two steps forward, though, and nowhere is that more noticeable than the five-race broadcast package that Nascar agreed with Amazon Prime Video. Offering the Cup Series exclusively through a streaming platform for the first time was arguably the most historic part of this new media rights deal.

Now that the package has run its course, can it be determined a success? BlackBook Motorsport analyses the data.

Five weeks of thrills, chills and beer spills #NASCARonPrime | @NASCAR pic.twitter.com/5qoUfWZpHn

— Sports on Prime (@SportsonPrime) June 23, 2025

How many people tuned in?

The simplest metric for determining success is how many viewers Prime Video managed to attract during its stint.

The partnership began well with 2.72 million viewers for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. Of course, the wider context is that this was the lowest audience for the event ever but, as the debut for a streaming service, this should be commended. Indeed, the Coca-Cola 600 had traditionally been aired on commercial television.

Crucially, Nascar commissioner Steve Phelps had publicly set a benchmark that Prime Video’s viewership would be at least as good as cable, so with that prediction came expectation. Prior to this new deal, Nascar’s cable partners were FS1 through Fox and USA Network and NBCSN through NBC.

When USA Network debuted as a Cup Series broadcaster in 2021, replacing the discontinued NBCSN channel, it took 13 races for it to record an audience higher than Prime Video’s debut figure.

In fact, that is the only instance of USA Network recording a Cup Series audience higher than 2.72 million, but this is where the good news began to shift as a downward trend developed.

The next race in Nashville managed an average viewership of 2.06 million, before Michigan only managed 1.77 million viewers, the lowest of Prime Video’s five-race stint and the tenth-smallest audience for a regular-season Cup Series race since 2020.

The first-ever Cup Series race in Mexico City managed to salvage some interest with an average audience of 2.1 million, but Pocono stumbled to a disappointing 1.87 million viewers to finish the five-race package.

But, with an average audience of 2.1 million across its five races, Prime Video delivered comparable figures to cable, making good on Phelps’ prediction.

Looking across the past five seasons of cable viewership, Nascar has bounced between highs of 2.26 million in 2021 and 2.08 million in 2020, with the remaining years landing somewhere in the middle. Overall, Nascar on cable has averaged 2.18 million viewers since 2020.

It’s worth noting, however, that the 2025 season has started with impressive interest on cable. FS1 averaged 2.46 million viewers, so it will be interesting to see how figures from USA Network and new partner TNT Sports affect this for the rest of the season. This will give a better understanding of how Prime Video has performed in the current climate.

What was the age of people watching?

With the Cup Series regularly averaging over three million viewers across the regular season in recent years, the total number of viewers is clearly not the barometer by which Nascar wishes to be judged.

After all, the whole point of targeting a streaming platform like Prime Video was to reach younger audiences, something that Amazon’s global head of sports Jay Marine underlined prior to the start of the deal.

And Nascar appears to have been successful in this goal. The series saw double-digit percentage rises in all the major age demographics, a good indicator for the long-term health of the sport.

Nascar claims an average of 233,000 viewers between the ages of 18 and 34 watched on Prime Video, a 36 per cent increase on the comparable stretch of races in 2024. Although, Nascar only released detailed information for four of the five races, so there remains an air of doubt.

For example, the average audience for this age demographic prior to the final race at Pocono was around 212,000. For the final figure to be true, Pocono would have averaged around 325,000 viewers in this demographic, around 75,000 more than the previous race in Mexico City and a record that Nascar would surely have promoted.

Still, Nascar’s audience is clearly heading in the right direction. The five races recorded a median age of 56.1, nearly seven years younger than the average age on linear networks for this year’s Cup Series season (62.8).

Further data reveals that Nascar averaged an audience of 601,000 in the 18 to 49 age demographic, a 19 per cent increase on 2024, and an average of 807,000 viewers between the ages of 25 and 54, a 28 per cent year-over-year (YoY) increase.

Comparing this to Formula One provides clarity on this performance in a wider context. BlackBook Motorsport has requested full season statistics, but the Canadian Grand Prix averaged 849,000 viewers in the 18 to 49 demographic. This is a figure that Nascar failed to match across the five races on Prime Video.

What can Nascar learn for the future?

In the process of attempting to attract new viewers to the sport, Prime Video introduced one broadcast innovation that may get Nascar’s other media rights partners interested.
Thanks to its position as a streaming platform and, therefore, free from the restrictions of linear scheduling, Prime Video created an extensive post-race show to break down the action.

All told, this averaged 931,000 viewers across the five races, retaining a notable 43 per cent of the race audience. This included highlight audiences of 1.07 million after Mexico City and 1.04 million after Charlotte.

There is clearly appetite for instant insight and analysis once the chequered flag falls, so it will be interesting to see how Nascar’s other broadcast partners react.

But, crucially, this partnership with Prime Video is something that should only grow as the years pass. Targeting the younger generation means the true impact will not be immediately felt.

In many ways, Nascar’s performance on Prime Video so far has echoes of the National Football League (NFL) during its first year on the streaming platform. Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football (TNF) package averaged 9.58 million viewers across its 15 regular season games in 2022, a considerable decrease on the audience of 16.2 million that Fox attracted the year prior.

However, Amazon was keen to highlight its youthful NFL audience, claiming it had the youngest median age of any NFL broadcaster since 2013. Viewership was also up 11 per cent from the previous season among the 18 to 34-year-old demographic.

Factoring in the latter stat, that means the NFL saw a larger drop in overall viewership and a smaller gain in the 18 to 34 demographic in the first year of its deal with Amazon compared to Nascar so far.

Amazon’s Jay Marine said in 2023 the platform was “playing the long game” with its TNF rights. Prime Video averaged 13.2 million viewers for the 2024 NFL season, an 11 per cent increase compared to 11.86 million viewers in 2023.

Prime Video is locked in for another six years with Nascar, so the series will be hoping it can follow a similar path to the one detailed above.

In conclusion, while it may have been a step backwards in terms of overall viewership, Nascar will hope its position on Prime Video continues to grow engagement with younger audiences to secure the long-term future of the sport.