IndyCar scored its top cable television audience in four years.
IndyCar Series racing from Fontana, CA, drew 512,000 viewers on NBCSN Saturday afternoon, up 83% from last year (280K), up 59% from 2013 (322K), and the largest audience for IndyCar on the network since Baltimore in September 2011 (591K).
Last year’s Fontana race was the season finale and began after 10 PM ET.
Overall, Saturday’s race earned the sixth-largest IndyCar audience on NBCSN (previously VERSUS) since the network began airing coverage in 2009 — trailing Texas in 2010 (518K) and the 2011 Toronto (521K), Texas (525K), Baltimore and Edmonton (642K) races. Those races, it should be noted, took place while Danica Patrick was still part of the series.
The strong performance marks a turnaround for IndyCar on NBCSN. Three of the four previous races had declines from last year, including a 60% drop for the Toronto race less than two weeks earlier.
(Sat. numbers from NBC Sports)
