Freedom 250 smashes INDYCAR TV marks with 3.28 million viewers

INDIANAPOLIS -- The inaugural Freedom 250 in Washington, D.C., proved to be a smashing success for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES with astronomical television ratings for Fox Sports.

The FOX broadcast drew the largest audience outside of the Indianapolis 500 in nearly 20 years with an average audience of 3,282,000 viewers. It was the largest non-Indy 500 rating since before the sport unified in 2008.

The metrics were a 279% increase over the average viewership of any other Sunday non-Indy 500 race aired last year on FOX. Viewership peaked at 3,482,000 from 2:30-2:45 p.m.

“Thank you to our incredible partners at Fox Sports and everyone across the paddock who helped make the weekend such a success,” said Mark Miles, president and CEO of Penske Entertainment, which promoted the $35 million race. “It was a significant moment for our sport and another demonstration of the momentum we continue to build together.”

The D.C. rating showed the continued improvement in television viewership of INDYCAR, which FOX has committed to airing the entire 18-race schedule on network. Through 15 races, INDYCAR on FOX is averaging 1,875,000 viewers, an increase of 32% (1,416,000) from FOX’s first year as the exclusive broadcast partner.

The numbers are up 70% (1,106,200) from NBC’s final season in 2024.

Further cementing the success was the head-to-head numbers against the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday in New Hampshire, where an average of 2 million viewers tuned into USA Network. The broadcast averaged 1.793 million viewers.

It is extremely rare for a non-Indianapolis 500 race to beat a NASCAR race in head-to-head competition and has not happened since before the 1996 split of CART and the Indy Racing League.

The success of Washington, D.C., was an overall victory for the entire INDYCAR Series and showed what can be accomplished with Fox Sports, which became a 1/3 equity owner of the series last year.

The rating was great, but Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks is focused on improving and growing the overall health of the series – something achieved by successes such as the Freedom 250.

“I think the success of this partnership has a lot of metrics in it. I think that the TV ratings are kind of the low-hanging fruit. It's what everybody can kind of look at, and it's easy to compare year-to-year,” said Shanks. “I don't look at race-to-race ratings. You look at the whole pie. You look at the sustainability of teams. Are we seeing new sponsors come into the sport because the ratings are up and you're on broadcast television? I think that you look at you look at the kind of quantifiable social media impacts. You look at attendance. It's all those things put together that you're building a really sustainable base for the future.

“Because the bigger that ratings get, the harder they are to move up, and so we have to keep doing more things like Washington, D.C., so that we get those big bumps throughout the year with that sustainable base.”

INDYCAR is back in action on FOX this weekend with a doubleheader at the Milwaukee Mile. Saturday’s race starts at 2:30 p.m. and Sunday coverage begins at 1 p.m., all on FOX with streaming available on FOX One.