– Patriotism as a driving force: FOX records historic ratings for the Freedom 250 on the streets of Washington, D.C. On average, 3.282 million viewers followed the race initiated by US President Donald Trump on US television. At its peak, the reach even climbed to 3.482 million viewers.
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Thus, the Freedom 250 not only beat the simultaneously held NASCAR race in New Hampshire (an average of around 2.0 million viewers on USA Network), which the racing series founded as IRL in 1996 had never achieved outside the Indy 500, but also sets a mark that has remained unmatched outside the Indianapolis 500 for three decades.
The FOX effect: Consistently on the main channel
The estimated household rating for the Freedom 250 is between 1.8 and 1.9 percent, marking the provisional peak of an upward trend since the broadcasting rights switched to FOX for the 2025 season.
The decisive lever lies in the broadcast slot guarantee: While predecessor NBC outsourced many races to niche and cable channels, on FOX all races run exclusively on the free-to-air main network. In the vast USA, terrestrial television (“Broadcast”) is far more widespread than cable television (“Cable”).
Combined with clever lead-ins at major events – such as the street course race at Road America directly following the Football World Cup – the series once again reaches a broad audience of millions.
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After the first FOX year already brought a decent average of 1.416 million viewers per race, the 2026 championship increased noticeably again. Over the first 15 scoring races of the current season, the average stands at 1.875 million viewers.
This corresponds to an increase of 32 percent compared to the previous year and a growth of a full 70 percent compared to the last season on NBC in 2024. Of course, the Freedom 250 significantly boosted these numbers.
Time travel: When were such ratings last seen?
You have to go back to the golden CART era to find comparable reach. While exact numbers are currently not publicly accessible online, thanks to the Wayback Machine and Autoracing1.com there are some historical figures from the CART era that provide a sobering look at the damage caused by the split.
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Since reach in the 1990s was primarily measured in households rather than total viewers, the number of persons can only be compared via extrapolation. The fact is: The Freedom 250 ranks directly in the league of the strongest CART races of 1995 and 1996.
– Phoenix 1995 (CART on ABC): The oval race recorded a TV rating of 3.1, which at the time corresponded to about 3.0 million households. Extrapolated to the actual person reach, an estimated 4.0 to 4.5 million viewers watched at that time.
– Long Beach 1996 (CART on ABC): The classic in California reached a rating of 2.7 (approx. 2.6 million households or around 3.5 to 3.8 million viewers).
– Surfers Paradise 1995 (CART on ABC): Even the overseas season opener in Australia achieved a rating of 2.2 on ABC (approx. 2.1 million households / just under 3.0 million viewers).
Due to the split into IRL and ChampCar, ratings deteriorated noticeably in the following years. Figures from 2000 show 1.556 million households (2.1 to 2.33 million viewers) for the CART race in Chicago 2000, and 2.058 million households (2.78 to 3.09 million viewers) for the Michigan 500, the then CART season highlight. (More figures from 2000 with comparisons to 1999 in a fan forum)
A freely accessible article for the figures from 1993 shows – already extrapolated to viewers – an average of 4.123 million viewers for Nigel Mansell’s championship season for the races on terrestrial television. Not all of these races were broadcast live at that time.
Since the reunification of the series in 2008, there has been no single race outside the Indianapolis 500 that even remotely approached the regions of the Freedom 250. Of course, it now remains to be seen whether IndyCar was able to excite at least some of the additional viewers for the sport, or whether the Freedom 250 will go down in history as a one-time outlier.
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