What We Watched: TV Ratings for Indy 500, F1 Monaco Grand Prix

When it comes to grading TV viewership on arguably the biggest racing day of the year, it all comes down to, "are your a glass half-full or glass half-empty" person.

The Indianapolis 500 won by Josef Newgarden was the TV winner of this year's Memorial Day weekend Sunday in the U.S., pulling an average audience of 4.71 million viewers on NBC. It's a slight uptick over last year's 4.62 million viewers.

The Indy 500 number, however, is the second-lowest viewership total for an Indy 500 in the past 20 years. The only race that attracted a lower number of viewers was the 2020 race that was held in August with no fans in the stands due to the COVID pandemic. That 2020 race attracted just 3.67 million viewers.

This year's Indy 500 was also a far cry in terms of numbers to the 2005 Indy 500 that attracted 9.74 million viewers. That year, the race was on ABC and featured the Indy 500 debut of Danica Patrick.

F1

As for Formula 1, this year's F1 Monaco Grand Prix that was broadcast live for the first time on ABC (9 a.m.-11 a.m. ET) brought in a record 1.79 million viewers. That was the largest U.S. audience on record for the historic race, according to the industry insider Sports Media Watch.