IndyCar is celebrating its most successful season on television in almost 20 years.
The series made a bold move to sign an exclusive deal with Fox Sports, putting every race on broadcast network television beginning in the 2025 season. That relationship deepened when Fox bought a 33% stake in the series.
And so far, the results are working out for both sides.
After seeing good numbers in the 2025 season, IndyCar ratings exploded even further in 2026, boosted by a couple of marquee events.
Over the campaign, IndyCar races on Fox averaged 1.68 million viewers per race, according to the network. That average is up an impressive 23% versus 1.36 million viewers last season. It’s also up 57% compared to the 2024 season, which was the last before the Fox Sports deal.
The per-race average rose because the Freedom 250 in Washington, D.C., averaged 3.28 million viewers. That was the most-watched race for IndyCar outside the Indy 500 since the 2008 merger between CART and IRL brought American open-wheel racing back together. This year’s Indy 500 was actually down a tick from last year’s number.
Perhaps most importantly, Racer notes that half of the 2026 IndyCar races on Fox averaged over 1 million viewers this season. That total is up from just five races that crossed the 1 million viewer threshold in the 2025 season.
It will be difficult for IndyCar to reach these numbers next year without that flagship event in Washington, D.C., that boosted its overall numbers for the year. But the fact that ratings weren’t just up for that event, but across the board, shows an encouraging sustainability that the series is moving in the right direction.
And with Fox invested not just figuratively, but literally, in the series’ future success, the racing series will hope this is a platform they can keep building on.
About Matt Yoder