US viewership: Nascar’s Coca-Cola 600 struggles against Indy 500 as F1’s Monaco GP hits record audience

The Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway struggled for viewership in the face of the Indianapolis 500 and rain delays, while the Monaco Grand Prix recorded its highest audience in the US.

Confirmed:

• Nascar sees audience of 3.1 million tune in for rain-delayed Coca-Cola 600, the lowest viewership in the race’s history on Fox
• Coca-Cola 600 viewership drops nine per cent compared to 2023 (3.39 million) and 20 per cent compared to 2022 (3.87 million)
• The Formula One Monaco Grand Prix recorded its highest audience ever in the US as 1.96 million watched the race on ABC
• This was the second time the race had aired live on commercial network ABC, seeing a ten per cent increase over last year’s audience of 1.79 million
• Indy 500 averaged 5.02 million viewers on NBC without additional streaming viewership added earlier this week, which totalled 5.34 million viewers

Context:

The Coca-Cola 600 has aired on Fox for 23 years and its last year on the channel will go down as the worst audience in that time. The race moves to Prime Video next year as part of Nascar’s new media rights agreement, but this is a disappointing end to a long-running partnership. In its defence, the race overlapped with the Indy 500 for nearly two hours due to rain delays, something that never usually happens and will have had a knock-on for both races.

Conversely, while rain wreaked havoc in the US, the Monaco Grand Prix offered motorsport fans some racing action. Airing on commercial TV will always provide a viewership boost compared to the races on ESPN and ESPN2, but 1.96 million viewers falls some way short of the audience of 3.1 million that watched the Miami Grand Prix on the same channel earlier this month.

Coming next:

IndyCar and Nascar return to action with the Streets of Detroit and the Enjoy Illinois 300, respectively, on 2nd June. Formula One has a week off before travelling to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for the Canadian Grand Prix from 7th to 9th June.

Go deeper:

• The SkyPad, Martin Brundle interviews, and remote production: Inside Sky Sports’ award-winning F1 coverage
• Nascar’s US$7.7bn TV deal: Why the annual value went up, who gets what, and the impact on fans