Analysis shows F1 viewership on Apple TV down significantly from ESPN

With Formula One races making their way from ESPN to Apple TV this season, it was sensible to predict that the glitzy open-wheel racing circuit would see some viewership erosion in the United States.

That’s not a dig at F1, that’s simply reality. ESPN and its sister broadcast network ABC, which aired select races last season, both have a much broader reach than Apple TV. They’re also simply destinations where sports fans show up to watch sports. Apple TV, on the other hand, is still trying to gain a foothold in that world.

So it was no surprise to see a recent analysis by USA Today, using data from analytics firm Samba, show that F1 grand prix viewership is down considerably in Year 1 on Apple TV.

Per USA Today, across nine F1 races this season, six of them saw viewership declines of 13 percent or greater. Of those six races, two stood out as particularly poor performers: the Miami Grand Prix and the Monaco Grand Prix. According to the analysis, viewership for Miami dropped by 68 percent year-over-year, while Monaco dropped by 66 percent.

Those two races were strong candidates for viewership declines in the new arrangement as both aired on ABC last year, pushing them out to a much broader audience than the races that aired on ESPN or ESPN2.

Other races saw substantial declines, but not nearly as severe as Miami and Monaco. Canada, for instance, was down 23 percent according to the analysis, while Barcelona was down 24 percent, Austria 13 percent, and Britain 16 percent.

The first three races of the season — Australia, China, and Japan — saw little or no decline at all. Australia was down four percent, China one percent, and Japan was even with last year. These races, of course, occur at odd hours in the United States, meaning only hardcore F1 fans were likely tuning in to begin with. Samba also speculates that viewership could’ve benefited from some fans activating a free trial for the early-season races.

There is reason to be skeptical of these numbers, however. Samba has a very limited view of how many people are watching Apple TV, as noted by Wesley Hilliard of Apple Insider. Samba is relying only on data gathered from embedded smart TV software, which excludes any Apple hardware given the company’s privacy efforts. This, perhaps, is why there’s a discrepancy between viewership milestones Apple has claimed, like viewership for the Australia event beating ESPN’s, and what Samba found, which indicates the race declined by four percent.

To be sure, F1 CEO Derek Chang has claimed viewership for the season is up on Apple. “In the U.S., Formula 1’s momentum on Apple continues to build, with viewership up year-over-year, season-to-date, and total hours watched up 13 percent,” he told investors earlier this month. However, he did not offer any details to go along with that 13 percent figure.

These numbers, it should be noted, are not comparable to the standard Nielsen measurements that ESPN and ABC used for their F1 telecasts in 2025. Nielsen figures are still treated as the gold standard in TV audience measurement, while internal numbers released by a streamer, or third-party measurements from other data firms, are often viewed skeptically.

Would it be shocking to find out that F1 has seen major declines in viewership since moving to Apple TV? Not at all. MLS went through a similar reckoning when it moved all of its games to the platform in 2023. But it’s smart to take the magnitude of these declines with a grain of salt given the limited dataset Samba had to work with.