NBC averaged 675,000 viewers for the NTT IndyCar Series season finale from St. Petersburg on Sunday afternoon. The series in recent years had normally finished by mid-September, but was pushed back by over a month due to COVID-19. Last year, NBC averaged 740,000 viewers for a final from Laguna Seca (also on a Sunday afternoon). While down from ’19, this year’s finale is up from 629,000 viewers on NBCSN in ’18 or 528,000 viewers in ’17. In terms of head-to-head competition on Sunday afternoon, IndyCar easily topped the LAFC-Galaxy match on ABC (369,000 viewers). A season-long viewership look for IndyCar, like many properties, is tough, given that the circuit’s most-prominent race -- the Indianapolis 500 -- was shifted from its normal Memorial Day weekend slot to August (leading to a record-low audience). When removing the Indy 500 and a Friday afternoon race on USA Network, IndyCar averaged 664,000 viewers for 12 races, up from 649,000 for a comparison to 15 similar races last season. The top race in ’20 was the season-opening race from Texas on NBC (1.3 million viewers). The opener had to be shifted to June 6 following a postponement of the season that was set to start in St. Pete on March 15. Many other races were also postponed.
