On April 15, 2025, FOX, the exclusive television partner, announced the official attendance figures for the 2025 IndyCar Grand Prix of Long Beach. When compared to comparable sporting events that took place during the second week of April, the numbers were startling. Let’s examine the dismal attendance figures and contrast them with those of NASCAR, Formula One, and The Masters. FOX’s tweet stated that the Long Beach Grand Prix averaged 552,000 views, which was 80% more than the average for 2024. USA Network aired the 2024 Long Beach Grand Prix, which drew an average audience of 307,000 people. Additionally, FOX disclosed that IndyCar had averaged 895,000 views throughout the season’s first three races, 189,000 more than the average for the same period in 2024. Yet, all of this was subsided by the viewership numbers of the other sporting events.
Reporter Adam Stern of the Sports Business Journal tweeted that whereas the first major golf tournament of the year, The Masters, at the Augusta National Golf Course, averaged 12.99 million viewers, the NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway drew 2.054 million on Fox Sports 1. Additionally, ESPN’s Andy Hall tweeted that the Bahrain Grand Prix, which took place on the same day as the IndyCar Long Beach Grand Prix, had an average of 1.3 million viewers, up from the previous year’s average of 1.1 million. A peak of 1.5 million people watched the Formula One race. Even yet, it was a better weekend for IndyCar than the previous event at Thermal Club, where attendance significantly decreased in comparison to the 2024 race and the season opener at St. Petersburg, it is still a point of concern when comparing it to other sporting events.
Examining IndyCar attendance since the St. Petersburg season opener
Over 1.4 million people watched the season-opening IndyCar race in St. Petersburg, a 45% increase over the average of 975,000 for the 2024 event. But at the season’s second race at Thermal Club, everything went south. With an average viewership of 704,000, the 2025 race at the Thermal Club saw an almost 50% decrease from the season opener. Additionally, attendance at the private racecourse dropped by 11% from the previous year’s race. With a 30% drop in attendance from the previous race, the Long Beach GP also saw a sharp decline in traffic compared to the Thermal Club race. There were a number of reasons for the low viewership, but the main one was the scheduling of IndyCar races alongside NASCAR and other big sporting events like the Masters.
