Followers of each IndyCar and NASCAR have been left annoyed following the choice to run the IndyCar race at Thermal and the NASCAR Cup race at Homestead at practically the very same time. The American open-wheel collection aired on FOX whereas NASCAR was featured on FOX Sports activities 1, apart from a 20-minute interval in the course of the race when the IndyCar broadcast went down as a consequence of technical points. Throughout that point, NASCAR was simulcasted on each channels.
On Monday, we discovered that there was a major drop in viewership between the IndyCar season opener at St. Pete and the second spherical of the season at Thermal. Regardless of each races showing on FOX’s main channel, viewership dropped 50.3% between with 704,000 tuning in for Thermal whereas over 1.4 million watched St. Pete.
FOX explains
Motorsport.com reached out to FOX Sports activities to raised perceive why the programming conflict occurred and have been supplied the next clarification from a consultant: “When IndyCar is on the West Coast, going head-to-head with NASCAR is unavoidable as a result of we will’t begin the IndyCar race at 9 a.m. PT /12 p.m. ET (too early on the market) earlier than NASCAR (at 3 p.m. ET). We can’t air IndyCar on Sunday nights within the spring due to FOX leisure applications airing in primetime.”
There will even be some crossover between the subsequent IndyCar race at Lengthy Seaside (additionally on the West Coast) and NASCAR at Bristol as effectively. Whereas indirectly head-to-head, Lengthy Seaside will begin about 90 minutes after Bristol, which normally runs for about three hours. As for the remaining races the place FOX broadcasts each NASCAR and IndyCar, there will likely be no different direct conflicts, at the very least for 2025.
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Nick DeGroot
IndyCar
NASCAR Cup
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