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The mark for Sunday's opener on the downtown
streets of St. Petersburg was a 45% increase over last year's
event, which drew 974,700 combined viewers on NBC.
The Fox Sports viewership peaked with 1,820,000 viewers from
2:15-2:26 p.m. Local market ratings will not be available until
later this week.
IndyCar this season ended it's 16-year relationship with NBC
Sports for a multi-year deal with Fox Sports, which has promised
high-quality production and promotion that began in January with
glossy commercials featuring three of the series stars that
aired during NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl.
IndyCar has a close relationship with Fox Sports CEO Eric
Shanks, an Indiana native with a passion for both the series and
the Indianapolis 500. He has vowed to push IndyCar back to the
top levels of motorsports.
Despite the heavy promotion — which was also done during
NASCAR's Daytona 500 and other Fox Sports programming — Shanks
acknowledged to The Associated Press “there will still be people
Googling on Sunday ‘What network is today’s IndyCar race on,'" —
something he hopes to eliminate. All 17 races and both of the
Indianapolis 500 qualifying sessions will be aired on Fox Sports
this year, making IndyCar the only major motorsports series to
air its entire schedule on network television.
The opener on Sunday, which was a 1-2 finish for Chip Ganassi
Racing with Alex Palou and Scott Dixon, was even more impressive
in that NBC Sports uses the TAD (total audience delivery) metric
that includes live streaming. FOX does not use TAD because it is
not recognized by Nielsen Media Research data.
The race netted an audience increase of 425,300 viewers over NBC
Sports and Fox Sports said it ranks as the most-watched IndyCar
race on network television in 14 years not including the Indy
500. That race, in 2011 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway where Dan
Wheldon was killed in a fatal accident, drew 2,448,000 viewers
on ABC.
Fox Sports also said Friday’s airing of the opening practice on
its Fox Sports 1 cable channel drew 95,000 viewers.
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