NASCAR’s Cup Series Chase TV broadcasts move from cable to over-the-air NBC beginning Sunday, with all three remaining races on network television, according to NASCAR reporter Jordan Bianchi, and the switch appears to be happening just in time.
NASCAR’s Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix Raceway last Sunday, Oct. 18, drew a disappointing 0.72 rating and 1.294 million viewers on USA Network, according to Sports Business Journal reporter Adam Stern.
That sits roughly 20% below the 1.62 million average for the Chase’s first six races, but that average is up by only 1% on 2025, according to Awful Announcing reporter Braylon Breeze.
As far as Phoenix goes, it is difficult to make a clean comparison with 2025 ratings because Phoenix hosted the championship last year. This year, however, Phoenix was the 33rd of 36 races and 2025’s 33rd points race of the season, at Las Vegas, drew a 0.84 rating and 1.7 million viewers, Stern reported. Sunday’s TV audience ran about 24% lower.
Before Sunday, the Chase had mostly held its own against 2025.
“Rough one this week for viewership. Most of the other Chase races have been pretty decent compared to last year, so I don’t know what happened this week other than ‘it’s Phoenix,’” NASCAR reporter Jeff Gluck wrote on social media Wednesday.
NASCAR TV Ratings Trend Across the 2026 Season
The previous week, the Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway pulled a 0.82 rating and 1.480 million viewers. That rating matched last year’s Roval race, but viewership fell from 1.8 million, according to Sports Business Journal’s Stern. Breeze called that 15% drop the steepest of the year.
Across 33 races, Cup events average 2.431 million viewers, down 1.4% from 2.467 million at the same point in 2025, according to The Daily Downforce. Races on Fox and NBC average 4.094 million. Those on FS1, TNT and USA average 1.980 million.
The split began in 2025, the first year of the current rights deals. The Cup Series averaged 2.45 million viewers in 2025, down 14.7% from 2.87 million in 2024. Sports Video Group’s data showed broadcast races gained 3% while those moved to cable lost 32%.
USA Network carried the Chase’s first seven races, all on Sundays going up against the NFL. Prime Video’s summer package averaged 2.29 million viewers, Breeze reported, well above the Chase’s 1.62 million.
NASCAR chief operating officer Ben Kennedy has suggested that the organization should consider whether the sport should keep going head-to-head with the NFL “on every single Sunday” as it builds its 2032 schedule, as quoted by Awful Announcing.
IndyCar averaged about 1.68 million viewers this season, up 23% and its best full-year number since 2008, according to Sports Business Journal’s IndyCar viewership report. Formula One averaged a record 1.3 million viewers per race in 2025, according to Front Office Sports.
And in golf, PGA Tour weekend telecasts on non-major events averaged 2.7 million viewers this season on CBS and NBC, Front Office Sports reported.
The NASCAR TV Contract and Plans to Pump Up Viewership
NASCAR’s media deals run seven years, from 2025 through 2031, with Fox, NBC, Amazon’s Prime Video and Warner Bros.-owned TNT Sports, according to BlackBook Motorsport writer Cian Brittle. The package is reported at $7.7 billion, about $1.1 billion a year with the separate O’Reilly Series deal at The CW included. That runs roughly 40% above the $820 million a year Fox and NBC paid under the previous contract.
Fox and NBC hold 14 Cup races each, with Prime Video and TNT at five apiece, BlackBook reported. The rights fee rose about 40% while average Cup viewership fell 14.7% in the first year.
NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell plans to meet CBS Sports head David Berson about moving TNT’s five Cup races to CBS, following the merger that put both networks under Skydance, according to Racing News writer Shane Walters. TNT reaches roughly 70 million homes. CBS reaches about 125 million.
“CBS used to be a great partner of ours, Turner has been fantastic, so who knows?” O’Donnell said at a Front Office Sports conference, as quoted by Racing News. He called the merger a chance to keep every partner close.
Talladega Superspeedway, next up on Oct. 25, drew 3.967 million on Fox for the NASCAR race there in the spring.
NASCAR Handed Troubling TV Ratings News After Phoenix Cup Series Race