MOTOR SPORTS

Indy 500 posts worst TV ratings ever, but like everything in 2020 — it's complicated

Indianapolis Star

The number is hard to just gloss over, so let’s get it out of the way: This year’s Indianapolis 500 was the lowest-rated edition ever – a span that essentially dates back to 1986, when the race was finally broadcast live nationally (minus Central Indiana). In their second year airing the race, NBC averaged 3.737 million viewers across the broadcast, from 2:31-5:45 p.m., achieving a 2.3 Nielsen rating.

It comes on the heels of the race’s first uptick in the ratings since 2015. In 2019, the race rose to a 3.4 rating off a record-low 3.1 in ABC’s final race in 2018, a trend that began three years prior (4.2 in 2015, 3.9 in 2016 and 3.4 in 2017).

IndyCar drivers compete in the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, August 23, 2020.

But to say it’s a disappointment, without an apples-to-apples comparison, would be short-sighted. Interpreting this year’s ratings requires a look at the TV window and circumstances that surrounded this year’s unique race.

Publicly and privately, officials on either side of the broadcast came away happy Sunday.

“This year’s Indy 500 lived up to its billing as a major broadcast event, registering NBC’s second-largest audience for a sporting event since the NFL divisional playoffs in January,” Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar told IndyStar in a joint statement. “Given the unprecedented nature of our date and time slot, along with exceptionally unusual competition for the Indy 500 across the sports TV landscape, we’re pleased with the outcome and are already looking forward to next year’s broadcast over Memorial Day weekend.”

The date change

The first and most obvious obstacle this year’s race faced: the 500 was held outside its traditional Memorial Day weekend window for the first time in its 104-year history. And that’s important. Yes, there’s a diehard IndyCar and Indy 500 fan crowd willing to watch the biggest race in the world whenever it might be held. Averaging close to 4 million viewers across a three-plus hour race is proof of that.

More on historical Indy 500 ratings:

But Tuesday’s results show just how important it is for a casual racing fan to know the Sunday during Memorial Day weekend, they can flip on TV just after noon and watch their one IndyCar race of the year. It’s tradition. Liken it to the bulge in church pews on Christmas and Easter. There’s no checking the TV listings or hoping you’re watching the right TV channel to catch a promo commercial. It’s something ingrained into your brain.

Nowhere was the more obvious than in the Indianapolis market’s ratings. In 2016, Indy led all local markets with a staggering 33.6 rating, meaning more than one-third of households in the area tuned in for the race. That number usually hovers somewhere between 10-12% for the re-airing of the race that happens Sunday night — and it still makes Indianapolis the leading market for the race by a landslide.

This year, just the fourth time the race was broadcast live locally, that number came in at 24.9. Still six-times higher than the second-best markets (Cincinnati; Columbus, Ohio and Las Vegas, all at 4.1), but significantly lower than four years ago. You could argue there was more hype for the 100th running, but you could attend that race. Sunday's you couldn't. Such a dropoff signals just how significant this date change was – both locally and nationally.

Fans set up in an Indianapolis Motor Speedway parking lot along 16th Street before the 104th running of the Indianapolis 500 at IMS on Sunday, August 23, 2020.

For what it’s worth, this year’s race registered as the most-watched motorsports race on any network to take place in August since NASCAR’s Bristol race in 2017 (3.838 million average viewers). It also came in as NBC’s second-most-watched sporting event this year, only behind the Vikings-49ers divisional playoff game Jan. 11 that averaged 30.2 million viewers.

Competitive counter-programming

Leading up to Sunday’s race, as well as in NBC’s release Tuesday, both race and broadcast officials have been quick to note how many other major sporting events this year’s 500 was up against, compared to a normal Memorial Day weekend. Between the 2:30-6 p.m. window, this year’s 500 overlapped with:

a NASCAR Xfinity series race for the first 30 minutes on NBCSN (averaged around 800,000 viewers)
the last round of the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust, the first event of the FedEx Cup, for the whole race on CBS (averaged 2.28 million viewers)
a marquee NBA playoff matchup between young star Luka Doncic (Mavericks) and one of the Finals favorites (Clippers) on ABC from 3:30 p.m. till the checkered flag (averaged 3.3 million viewers)
the NASCAR Cup series race at Dover from 4 p.m. until the checkered flag on NBCSN (averaged 1.95 million viewers)

How does that compare to last year’s race?

an Ole Miss-Vanderbilt college baseball game on ESPN2 for the final 10 minutes of the race (averaged 320,000 viewers)
most of a Tennessee-Florida college softball super regional game on ESPN (averaged 590,000 viewers)
part of the second half of a friendly USA-Mexico women’s soccer match on ESPN (averaged 615,000 viewers)
the final round of a run-of-the-mill PGA Tour event, the Charles Schwab Challenge, for the race’s last hour on CBS (averaged 2.06 million viewers)

Other notable context

This year’s down 500 also comes in a year where IndyCar TV ratings are up significantly compared to the series’ first year with NBC in 2019. After the Iowa doubleheader weekend, where NBC had broadcast three races each on NBC and NBCSN, TV ratings were up 9% on the first such six races in 2019, excluding the Indy 500.

Additionally, Penske Entertainment Corp. president and CEO Mark Miles said last week on a media Zoom call that the series expects to reach roughly the same amount of viewers over a 14-race 2020 schedule as they did over 17 races in 2019. Qualifying Sunday this year also delivered a significant boost in ratings numbers from a year ago, up 24% on 2019 when both programs were on NBC.

More Indy 500 coverage:

It’s evidence that IndyCar’s core fan group is continuing to grow, and that’s important for any race, including the Indy 500. But where the Greatest Spectacle in Racing excels, in terms of TV ratings, is with the hoards of casual fans that tune in. IndyCar reached some of those, but not nearly as many.

It’ll be interesting to track how the rest of NBC Sports’ championship season draws over the next month or so, with the final two legs of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup, the fan-less Kentucky Derby and the end of NASCAR’s regular season and start of it’s playoffs. Notably, the Indy 500 was marketed as the kickoff event of all those major events, which helps in some ways — being “the first” – but hurts in others, when you don’t get promoted during major broadcasts.

IndyCar also hadn’t held a race in five weeks, yet another quirk in its ever-changing schedule.

So is it time to hit the panic button? I’d argue no, even as stark as that drop appears on a graph. Disappointing? Maybe, but more than anything, it gives a great window into a significant portion of the annual Indy 500 audience — folks happy to watch a race they know is coming like the back of their hand, but who may not go out of their way to do so in a year where hardly anything’s the same.

Email IndyStar motor sports reporter Nathan Brown at nlbrown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @By_NathanBrown.