- Race delivers most-watched Nascar telecast since 2023 Daytona 500
- Audience peaked at 9.2m viewers, the highest for a Nascar race in three years
Nascar’s season-opening Daytona 500 delivered an average of 7.49 million viewers on Fox.
This year’s race saw an 11 per cent year-over-year (YoY) audience increase, although it should be noted that last season’s event was impacted by significant rain delays.
That said, the event becomes the most-watched Nascar telecast since the 2023 Daytona 500. This year’s race was also brought forward an hour due to threat of weather, which usually results in a viewership decrease.
At its peak, 9.2 million viewers – the most for any portion of a Nascar race in three years – watched the crash-filled conclusion that saw 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick emerge from the chaos to take victory.
However, the race is yet to reach the viewership heights of 2022 and 2023, which saw average audiences of 8.87 million and 8.18 million, respectively.
It should be noted that this also comes at a time when all sports viewership is seeing an uptick in average viewers thanks to a change in measurement. Towards the end of last year, Nielsen began to combine insights from its household television viewing panel with big data in order to provide more accurate audience measurements in the streaming era.
Still, Nascar executives will be buoyed that the Daytona 500 fared strongly against the National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Star game on NBC, which aired during the final 50 minutes of the race and averaged a total audience delivery (TAD) of 8.8 million viewers.
This comes after the sport struggled in the first year of its new media rights deal, particularly during the playoffs. The 2025 season averaged 2.45 million viewers, the lowest figure in Nascar history.
Despite the overall struggles, the Fox portion of last season performed strongly with an average of 4.52 million viewers on the main channel and 2.46 million viewers on FS1.
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