Getty NASCAR fans react to race action.
Americans recognize May 5 as Cinco de Mayo. According to some American motorsports fans on social media, the 2024 holiday will be remembered as the day that F1 proved it’s better than NASCAR — at least in the television ratings.
The numbers are definitive. According to ESPN, ABC set a record with an average of 3.1 million viewers watching the Miami Grand Prix 2024. The taped coverage of the 2002 Monaco race was the previous best at 2.78 million while the previous high for a live race occurred during the inaugural Miami event in 2022, with 2.58 million. Last year’s ratings saw a significant drop to 1.96 million, a 24% decline.
This year’s number is a 48% jump in viewers from 2023 and an almost 20% increase over 2022.
Also, this year’s F1 numbers — for the first time — topped the NASCAR Cup Series race, which recorded an average audience of 2.29 million, down 2% from the 2.35 million that watched in 2023.
“Despite the caveats, the viewership still underscores how F1 has elevated itself as a property in America since the pandemic,” Sports Business Journal’s Adam Stern wrote on May 7.
F1 Beating NASCAR in TV Ratings Isn’t a Surprise
Some might suggest that the numbers don’t lie. In straight-up ratings, F1 outperformed NASCAR. This is true. But there’s more to the story – much more.
And it starts with what happened to the Cup Series race in Kansas. Unexpected rain. After days of forecasts saying everything was all good to go, Mother Nature said otherwise. The race was scheduled to begin at 3 p.m Eastern time. It was delayed for three hours.
.@ABCNetwork got 3.1 million viewers for the race portion of Sunday’s @F1Miami race, per ESPN, becoming the most-watched @F1 grand prix in U.S. history.
🔲 The race got an @NBA Game 7 lead in from Magic-Cavs.
Guess what happened in that three-hour window? The F1 race.
Sure, there are absolutely some NASCAR fans who flat-out refuse to watch anything related to F1. The feelings of some F1 fans are mutual. They don’t care about left turns.
But there are a lot more NASCAR fans who are general fans of motorsports who decided that if another live racing event was on TV — which is rarely the case because of F1’s international schedule and not-always-U.S.-friendly start times — they’d dedicate the time to sit down and watch it, knowing that the Miami race would conclude before the rescheduled start of the Cup race.
The Other Factors of F1 Beating NASCAR in TV Ratings
The motorsports gods smiled down on the US auto-racing scene on May 5, not only allowing fans to conveniently tune into the races but to witness a piece of history in both.
First, Lando Norris won for the first time in his career and temporarily changed the narrative and a reason some Americans have stopped watching F1 — Max Verstappen’s dominance. It was a feel-good story to see the Brit win, and a lot of fans tuned in after seeing on social media that he had taken the lead.
As entertaining as that storyline was, it still, appropriately enough, came in a close second for those fans who tuned in for the afternoon-turned-evening race from America’s heartland. Many are suggesting the Kansas Cup race was one of the greatest from start to finish in the sport’s 76-year history, and it is officially the closest finish in Series history with< Kyle Larson edging out Chris Buescher by 0.001 seconds.
While the rain delay ultimately worked out for a motorsports smorgasbord, that delay in the NASCAR race naturally resulted in a decline in viewers. There was one other key factor between the two race broadcasts that occurred. F1 aired on ABC and included a direct lead-in from the NBA Playoffs first-round Game 7 between the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers, which had an average of 4.32 million viewers. As mentioned, the NASCAR broadcast aired on FS1 and had no notable lead-in.
So as much as some fans on social media are pushing the panic button and suggesting F1 is better than NASCAR, they can certainly make that claim for the May 5 races, based on the size of the television viewing audiences. However, that’s not painting a complete picture of why it happened.
But, as they say, why let the truth get in the way of a good story?