Nascar viewership on Fox up 1% on 2023

• 3.37m viewers in 2024, compared to 3.34m viewers in 2023
• Viewership down YoY when including Busch Light Clash and All-Star Race

Fox has revealed Nascar viewership has increased one per cent year-over-year (YoY) for the 2024 season.

Across Fox and FS1, the first half of the season averaged an audience of 3.37 million, compared to the 2023 average of 3.34 million.

This is the first time since 2001 that Fox has enjoyed a YoY increase in viewership despite a weather-affected Daytona 500. This year’s race averaged an audience of only 5.96 million, a 27 per cent decrease on the year prior.

The six Cup Series races that aired on FS1 averaged 2.39 million viewers, a 13 per cent YoY increase. The races that aired on the main Fox channel, excluding the Daytona 500, saw an average audience of 3.77 million, a four per cent YoY increase.

However, these official figures for the first half of the season do not include the numbers from the preseason Busch Light Clash or the midseason All-Star Race.

Including the non-points scoring races this season, Nascar averaged 3.22 million viewers in 2024, compared to 3.29 million in 2023 and 3.64 million in 2022.

BlackBook says...

Overall, the headline figures for Fox are good. A viewership increase in a year where the Daytona 500 did not deliver its usual viewership numbers is impressive.

Of course, the YoY increase has been framed without the preseason Busch Light Clash and midseason All-Star Race to appear more positive, but these are ultimately exhibition races.

This positivity should still be taken with a pinch of salt, though, as 3.64 million viewers across the entire stretch of 18 races in 2022 is more than 400,000 viewers better off.

From next season, Fox will lose the Coca-Cola 600 – one of the series' flagship races – to Prime Video as part of the new Nascar media rights deal, so it will be interesting to see how the broadcaster can offset that departure while continuing to deliver strong viewership figures.