AllRacing

IndyCar keeps the ratings momentum rolling in Portland

Will Power’s victory at Sunday’s BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portl and generated an average audience of 708,000 viewers on FOX. It was the fourth consecutive IndyCar race to produce an average in the 700,000 range, the sixth out of the last seven in the 700,000 tier, and the eighth race of the 15 held so far on the FOX network to land within 704,000 (Thermal) and 781,000 (Road America) viewers this season.

The IndyCar race held at Portland International Raceway was moved to FOX Sports 1 for the opening 31 minutes of the broadcast and race as the LIV golf tournament in Illinois went beyond its intended broadcast window on the network. On FS1, IndyCar averaged 151,000 viewers and with the switch to network, a peak audience of 945,000 tuned in towards the end of the 110-lap race that delivered Alex Palou’s fourth championship.

The overall average of 708,000 for the network portion of the broadcast represents a gain of 86 percent over the 380,068 viewers measured in 2024 for the Portland race on NBC’s USA cable channel.

So far in its debut season as IndyCar’s exclusive partner, the 15 FOX races have delivered an average of 1,416,000 viewers per broadcast, with the 7,087,000 for the Indianapolis 500 creating the greatest lift, which is an improvement of 28 percent from the 1,106,000 from the first 15 races on NBC’s range of channels in 2024.