The 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season was the most watched season in NBC Sports over the past five years of airing the races.
The 15 races aired across NBC, NBCSN and NBC Sports digital platforms such as Peacock averaged a total audience delivery TAD of 1.223 million viewers, an increase of 19 percent.
INDYCAR SERIES coverage on NBCSN averaged 632,000 viewers this season, the best in the network’s history, up 46% vs. 2020 (432,000 viewers), and up 49% vs. 2019 (423,000). NBCSN delivered two of its top four most-watched races on record in 2021, headlined by the inaugural Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, which averaged a TAD of 1.212 million viewers to rank as the network’s most-watched INDYCAR SERIES race ever and believed to be the most-watched cable race for the series in 23 years (1998, 2.218 million, ESPN).
The 105th running of the Indianapolis 500 powered the NBC broadcast network to a substantial viewership increase this season. The “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” averaged 5.581 Million viewers, up 51% vs. 2020 and up 2% vs. 2019. For NBC’s eight races this season, the network averaged a TAD of 1.722 million viewers, up 16% as compared to 2020 (1.484 million).
Locally, Indianapolis led all markets with a 4.4 household rating. Following are the Top 10 markets for the 2021 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season.
RANK MARKET RATING
1 Indianapolis 4.40
2 Knoxville 1.85
3 Dayton 1.80
4 Louisville 1.69
5 Nashville 1.68
6 Columbus, Ohio 1.63
7 Cincinnati 1.59
8 Ft. Myers 1.54
9 Greenville 1.41
10 Sacramento 1.23
In July, INDYCAR and NBC Sports announced a multi-year extension to their media rights agreement, continuing NBC Sports as the exclusive home of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. The 2022 INDYCAR SERIES season will feature a record 14 races on broadcast network NBC, headlined by the 106th Running of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 29. The 17-race slate, which again will be exclusively presented across NBC Sports, opens with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, on Sunday, February 27, on NBC.