Fox Sports activities’ protection of the Indianapolis 500, the crown jewel of U.S. automotive races, drew 7.05 million viewers for Sunday’s operating, the community mentioned. That metric, based mostly on Nielsen quick nationals, is up 40% over final yr’s race viewership and makes this yr’s race the most-watched Indy 500 since 2008.
The race, received by Álex Palou, marked the primary for Fox underneath its new TV rights deal inked final June for the IndyCar sequence, held the previous six years by NBC.
Final yr, NBC’s protection drew 5.024 million viewers.
Fox went all in for its first yr main protection at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, displaying all of qualifying over the weekend earlier than starting protection on race day at 10:30 a.m. ET. The race itself was carried stay on Fox, Fox Deportes and the Fox Sports activities app starting at 12:45 p.m. ET.
In response to Nielsen, the viewership peaked between 4:15-4:30 p.m. ET on the climax, when Palou took over first place with 14 laps left and led the remainder of the way in which.
Palou, with Chip Ganassi Racing, received Indy for the primary time and have become the primary Spaniard to win on the race in its 109th operating. He got here into the day main the IndyCar sequence with 4 wins within the season’s 5 races.
Fox Sports activities, which is carrying all IndyCar sequence races as a part of its rights deal, has three on the schedule for June: the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix on June 1, the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 in Illinois and the XPEL Grand Prix at Street American in Wisconsin.
