- Fourth time on record that Nascar has averaged fewer than 3m viewers for a season
- Viewership remained consistent YoY despite significant audience drops for Daytona, Chicago, and Charlotte
Nascar’s championship race at Phoenix averaged 2.9 million viewers on NBC, confirming a full-season average audience of 2.87 million for the stock car racing series.
The 2024 season finale figures were consistent with last year’s race, which had an average audience of 2.92 million. This saw the 2024 playoffs finish with a viewership average of 2.3 million, a five per cent increase on the 2023 figure of 2.2 million.
With the regular season averaging 3.13 million viewers in 2024, the full-season average came out to 2.87 million, which underlined a consistent year compared to last season.
An official Nascar statement for full-season viewership saw the series average 2.89 million, but this was for race telecasts from the Daytona 500 to the season finale in Phoenix on linear television only.
This figure leaves out the 1.51 million viewers that watched the rain-affected Busch Light Clash. Including this preseason event actually adds more weight to the theory that Nascar had a stronger season than it appears on the surface.
Year-over-year (YoY), the Busch Light Clash fell 58.6 per cent in viewership, the Daytona 500 dropped 27.1 per cent, the Chicago Street Race decreased 16.4 per cent, and the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte dipped 8.7 per cent.
All four events were severely affected by rain – and the latter three are among Nascar's biggest audience draws during the season. Despite this, the series matched its 2023 figure, emphasising the strength of the overall season.
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This is the fourth time on record that Nascar has averaged fewer than three million viewers across a season, but avoiding a YoY decrease is a positive sign ahead of the landmark broadcast deal set to get underway next season.
The main issue facing the series in 2025, at least on the media front, is ensuring that fans are made aware of a complicated TV schedule so that viewership doesn't take a noticeable hit while fans are adjusting.
From next year, practice and qualifying will be shown by Prime Video in the first half of the season, excluding the Clash, the Daytona 500 and the All-Star Race which will all air on Fox. The sessions in the second half of the year will be broadcast on TNT Sports.
For the races themselves, 14 are on Fox, followed by five each on Prime Video and TNT Sports, before NBC rounds out the year with 14 events.
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