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Despite a nearly four-hour weather delay, the 108th Indianapolis 500 averaged 5.344 million viewers on NBC, Peacock and NBC Sports digital platforms on Sunday, up 8% compared with the 2023 race.
The race, won for the second straight year by Josef Newgarden, also drew 10% more viewership than the 2022 race.
Sunday’s race peaked at 6.46 million viewers from 7:30 to 7:45 p.m. as Newgarden outdueled Pato O’Ward in a thrilling finish.
Because of the rain delay, IndyCar removed the typical local blackout in Indianapolis, giving WTHR-TV Channel 13 an 18.15 household rating and 54 share.
NBC Sports said the race was its most-watched Sunday sports event since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played the Detroit Lions in the NFL playoffs on Jan. 21.
Through six races, the 2024 IndyCar Series is averaging 1.95 million viewers, up from 1.94 million last year at the same point.
Record purse
The Indianapolis 500 purse paid out a record purse for the third year in a row, with Newgarden of Team Penske earning $4.288 million from a total purse of $18,456,000.
Newgarden’s purse included a $440,000 roll-over bonus from BorgWarner for earning back-to-back wins.
Second-place finisher Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren took home $1,050,500
In 2023, the purse was $17,021,500 and the winner’s payout was $3.666 million.
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They lifted the blackout. Of course viewership would be up.
Simple math will tell you that lifting of the local blackout does not account for the entirety of the viewership increase. Nice try, though.
Great race…My grandson and I were one of the few who went home and watched on Peacock. Hey, I know its not my money…..but here’s my proposal for purse distribution:
1st Place $10,000,000
2nd Place $ 5,000,000
3rd Place $ 2,500,000
bottom 13 $ 200,000 each
Next 10 $ 400,000 each
Next 5 $ 750,000 each
5th place & 4th $ 1,000,000
3rd $ 2,500,000
2nd $ 5,000,000
1 st $ 10,000,000
Now…it just needs to be funded!
excuse the redundancy..supposed to total nearly $30,000,000
When you push an event into a time frame when more people are actually home and able to watch television, of course viewership is going to increase. If IndyCar were looking strictly at operating for TV, the 4:30-5 p.m. start time would be the norm, not the exception.
Increased TV numbers aside, the real thing to note is that this was the second highest attended race in 100 years. Yet the naysayers will try to convince you the race is dying.
The 500 trounced the viewership numbers of the Coca-Cola 600 run later the same day and also beat the numbers for this years edition of the Daytona 500 (down 27% from the year before).
The Greatest Spectacle in Racing is alive and well…
The race isn’t dying. INDYCAR as a whole is dying.
Pat B., I think you may be confusing IndyCar with another American racing series by the name of NASCAR. IndyCar races are seeing year over year INCREASES in terms of both actual attendance and TV viewership.
IndyCar and Indy 500 is the greatest racing in the world.! F1 is the most predictable and most boring. NASCAR is second most boring. IMS knows how to plan and present real racing, right here in the Racing Capital of the World!
Great job to all of them and especially Doug Boles! !!!
A couple questions that we won’t get answers to:
Are we ever going to move past the local blackout? I find it very hard to believe a statistically significant amount of people are saying “well, since I can’t watch it live, i better buy a ticket” That also ignores streaming options, which are only going to increase.
Does an afternoon start time have any traction? It can’t be as late as this year, but would a 2-3p start help TV numbers? Would it help local logistics (traffic)? Is the weather statistically more volatile later in the day?