Here is a rundown of what got me thinking…
Will Power has left Team Penske and joined Andretti Global. Colton Herta is going to be Cadillac F1’s development driver and will race in Formula Two. And we have already covered those topics. Max Verstappen showed he is a special talent with victory in the Italian Grand Prix. McLaren has created quite a situation for itself after it redressed its running order due to a poor pit stop for Lando Norris, leading to a sacrifice from Oscar Piastri. The Formula Three season ended. We know the MotoGP championship will at least carry into Japan. Rain did not play nice for the FIA World Endurance Championship nor the SuperMotocross World Championship. It has been a week since the IndyCar season has ended, and the numbers are in.
Chasing the Wrong Fish
For all the sourness we experienced through the first half, if not the first two-thirds, of the 2025 IndyCar Series season, dare I say this season ended on a rather positive note?
We had a few competitive races that saw the depth of IndyCar's talent on full display. Five different drivers won the final five races of the season from four different organizations, and this included a first-time winner. The events drew pretty good crowds, especially Milwaukee and Nashville Superspeedway, which both only returned to the schedule last year and with skepticism if the support would be there. Television viewership also ended on a high-note. The Nashville finale drew 1,142,000 million viewers, the third-most watched race of the season behind only the Indianapolis 500 and St. Petersburg season opener.
While overall numbers were up from 2024, we must acknowledge the finite details.
The Nashville race was the first one to draw more than 790,000 viewers since Gateway in June. That means IndyCar had eight consecutive races draw fewer than 800,000 viewers entering the finale. Year-to-year is one thing to compare, but every race was on network television this season while last year's schedule was nearly equally split between network and cable races, with a few events moved to cable that were supposed to be on network television. There were also two streaming-exclusive races in 2024.
Compare 2025 to 2023 when there were 13 races on network television, eight races in 2023 had over million viewers compared to five races this year, and 11 races had more than 800,000 viewers. Only six races cleared 800,000 viewers this year.
If you remove the Indianapolis 500 from the equation for both 2023 and 2025, and the least-viewed race for each year, which takes out the Peacock-only Toronto race in 2023, the average viewership of the middle 15 races in 2023 was 885,800 people, slightly more than the average of 851,067 people that watched the middle 15 races in 2025. If you took into consideration just the network television races, the 12 non-Indianapolis 500 races in 2023 averaged around 967,250 viewers. The best 12 non-Indianapolis 500 races in 2025 average 898,167 viewers.
In essence, IndyCar has made no notable change over the last two years. IndyCar is the same as it was yesterday, even if growth is being sold. Anyone who was paying attention knows no one was celebrating on a race-by-race basis this season. Most Tuesdays would roll around after a race and there weren't cartwheels being performed when the ratings came out. There was mostly reasons given for why the races were stuck in this rut around three quarters of a million people.
We have covered those before. Other events, other races, you name it. The problem is if you are using say going against a NASCAR Cup race is the reason for why viewership was low, you must acknowledge the opposite is the reason for why the viewership was high. All five races that drew over a million viewers this season did not go head-to-head with NASCAR Cup races.
St. Petersburg led into the Austin Cup race. Indianapolis was hours before Charlotte's 600-miler. Detroit was in the afternoon while NASCAR was in Nashville that night. Gateway was moved to the night-time to avoid racing against the NASCAR race from Mexico that afternoon. IndyCar's Nashville finale was in the afternoon and ended well before the Southern 500 began from Darlington.
It isn't so much that people decided to watch IndyCar because they really wanted to see these races. They decided to watch IndyCar because NASCAR wasn't on.
That is the crux of IndyCar's current existence. It has just north of 700,000 people who will watch every race no matte what, and just under a half-million people will tune in when not against their preferred motorsports series. That dependency is not healthy. It is impossible to avoid conflicts for every race. Relying on motorsports fans to grow your series has been a losing bet for IndyCar.
Over the last decade alone, IndyCar has had plenty of opportunities to turn these people into IndyCar first followers. For all the people who have been disenchanted with a playoff system, how the cars have raced over multiple generations of cars, high downforce packages, low downforce packages, the lack of horsepower, the balance of track disciplines, and the contentiousness over decisions that put entertainment ahead of sporting merits, they haven't left NASCAR for a series that will call itself purer in IndyCar. Being a suitable alternative with a full season aggregate deciding a championship where almost any team on the grid can win any race but the best talent can still rise to the top has not attracted more regular followers to IndyCar.
Yet, the first answer given on what could be done whilst in the middle of what felt like a stagnant season in terms of exposure was avoid conflicts. Avoid NASCAR, avoid Formula One when it runs at favorable start times, which are increasing with increasing number of races in North America, but that is not a solution for growth. That is status quo. That is what IndyCar has been doing for 20 years. For a series that needs a larger congregation, it only looks for short-term solutions and how to cater to those who only ever wish to be causal viewers.
It is a popular strategy because it is easy. Real growth requires much more effort.
It is not impossible as we have seen with Formula One. Viewership increased not because a bunch of motorsports fans decided to start watching but because of a bunch of people who never followed motorsports decided to get involved. There are plenty out there and it has led Formula One to become second in the motorsports pecking order despite all the reasons that were long believed to be obstacles to the series' success.
Early start times, one-sided championship battles and lack of Americans hasn't hurt Formula One in the United States. Meanwhile, being a local series that regular celebrated its close championship battles with full-season aggregate point systems with races that anyone can win and that has American race winners and champions doesn't seem to do a damn thing for IndyCar.
There is enough evidence to show IndyCar is not flipping the viewership trend of current motorsports fans. As much as it keeps trying, Sisyphus isn't getting that boulder up the hill. Then go find your own people. It isn't easy, but there are those out there who are not watching and are still not interested in motorsports who may find this fits them. No one expected that to happen for Formula One, and it did. IndyCar has to reach those who otherwise are not being reached.
Real growth for IndyCar is not using a bloated Indianapolis 500 television rating to tell you everything is fine and dandy with the series and it is on the right trajectory. That is where averages can mislead you. One massive day can paint a much rosier picture. If three people went to a casino and one person won $5,000,000 gambling while the other two lost $5,000 and $10,000 respectively, the trio didn't win on average about $1,661,000 now did they?
If you compare the medians of 2023 to 2025, the median in 2023 was 953,000 viewers. In 2025, it was 775,000 viewers.
Kyle Larson is not going to be competing at Indianapolis in 2026, and until you can find a more concrete reason why viewership was up 40% this year and those folks will continue to watch next year while most of the season could not draw more than 800,000 viewers, I have a hard time believing next year can be spun in a positive way.
Real growth is taking the 700,000-ish group that will watch every race no matter what and making it a 900,000-ish group, then one million and then 1.25 million and so on.
We have to stop looking at year-to-year comparison and look a three-year and five-year trends. IndyCar is where it has been for the last five or six years. The 2025 season was not a rocket ship to the moon. It was hardly a trampoline launching you to the rooftop. One television network switch was not going to cause a significant change overnight. Celebrations should be reserved for 2028 or 2030 at the earliest, and it should only come when the base that will show up to watch Iowa, Portland, and Road America is notably larger than where it was in 2025.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Max Verstappen, but did you know…
Leonardo Fornaroli (sprint) and Luke Browning (feature) split the Formula Two races from Monza. Roman Bilinski (sprint) and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak (feature) split the Formula Three races.
Álex Márquez won MotoGP’s Catalan Grand Prix, his second victory of the season. Marc Márquez won the sprint race. Daniel Holgado won the Moto2 race, his first victory in the category. Ángel Piqueras won the Moto3 race, his fourth victory of the season. MotoE races.
The #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche of Kévin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell won Lone Star Le Mans. The #95 United Autosports McLaren of Sean Gelael, Marino Sato and Darren Leung won in LMGT3.
Denny Hamlin won the NASCAR Cup race from Gateway, his fifth victory of the season. Connor Zilisch won the Grand National Series, his ninth victory of the season.
The #99 Random Vandals Racing BMW of Kenton Koch and Connor De Phillippi and the #34 MF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG of Mikaël Grenier and Michai Stephens split the GT World Challenge America races from Barber Motorsports Park. The #7 ACI Motorsports Porsche of Riley Dickinson and Curt Swearingin and the #68 RAFA Racing Team Toyota of Gresham Wagner and Tyler Gonzalez split the GT4 America races. Ross Chouest and Justin Rothberg split the GT America races.
Toprak Razgatlioglu swept the World Superbike races from Magny-Cours. Stefano Manzi swept the World Supersport races.
Jett Lawrence won the SuperMotocross race from Charlotte. Haiden Deegan won the 250cc race. The second Motos for each class were cancelled due to weather.
Coming Up This Weekend
NASCAR’s first round of the playoff concludes at Bristol.
The Suzuka 1000 km returns with Intercontinental GT Challenge.
MotoGP has a round in Misano.
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters makes a weekend trip to Austria.
World Rally Championship continues its South American tour into Chile.
Supercars has its first endurance round at Tailem Bend.
The European Le Mans Series will be at Silverstone.
St. Louis hosts the SuperMotocross World Championship second round.
