F1 concludes ESPN era with fresh viewership milestones
ESPN’s eight-year stint hosting Formula 1 closed in its typical dramatic fashion, adding to the series of audience highs. The season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix drew an average rating of 0.8 and 1.53 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest crowd ever for the race and eclipsing last year’s high of 1.0 million. Although Nielsen’s methodology has evolved in the past year—expanding its out-of-home sampling to cover all markets and incorporating data from smart TVs and set-top boxes alongside the traditional panel—this 53 percent jump cannot be dismissed as mere measurement change.
Max Verstappen’s victory came as Lando Norris secured the season title, and it also represented the final Formula 1 race broadcast on the ESPN networks. Beginning next season, F1 will shift to Apple TV under a five-year media rights agreement.
Abu Dhabi was the 16th race of 24 to set a new viewing record and the 21st to show a year-over-year increase, though the caveats around the new measurement methods should be kept in mind. Three races did not rise in viewership: the Miami Grand Prix remained the season’s most-watched event at 2.17 million, but it did not match last year’s all-time high, which benefited from an NBA playoff lead-in.
The full 2025 F1 season averaged 1.32 million viewers on ESPN networks, up 20% from 2024’s 1.10 million and marking the most-watched F1 season in U.S. television history. The prior record was 1.21 million in 2022, though that figure came before the current era of expanded data collection and greater out-of-home viewing, suggesting it would likely rank higher under consistent measurement.
Looking back over five seasons—extending from 2021 to 2025—these are the five most-watched F1 seasons on record, each surpassing the former peak of 748,000 set in 1995. Since ESPN began airing F1 in 2010, ESPN has now seen six of the past 30 years' most-watched seasons.
When ESPN launched its current F1 coverage in 2018, the inaugural season averaged 554,000 viewers, a noticeable improvement over NBC Sports’ prior year average of 538,000.
Form of Viewership Trends for F1 (2012–Present)
Relative to other motorsports properties, F1’s audience was nearly on par with the IndyCar Series, which averaged around 1.36 million; note that IndyCar’s rights move to FOX brought broadcast-only exposure in its first year of the deal.
F1’s viewership also trailed NASCAR Cup Series, which averaged about 2.48 million across a mix of broadcast (FOX and NBC), cable (FS1, TNT, USA), and streaming (Amazon Prime Video). In contrast, the NASCAR Xfinity Series averaged 1.05 million on CW, a level closer to IndyCar’s broadcast-only footprint.
Average motorsports viewership in 2025
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is likely to be one of the last F1 races with a publicly available viewership figure for some time, as Apple’s platform has not opted into Nielsen measurements for its sports offerings, with occasional viewership details disclosed at the discretion of league executives—much like MLS previously did under Apple.
Nonetheless, ahead of the Apple deal, F1’s viewership stood at record highs under Nielsen measurements and stood competitive with domestic peers.
Author note: Jon Lewis has chronicled the sports media landscape since 2006 as founder and chief writer of Sports Media Watch. For questions or comments, you can reach him through the Sports Media Watch site or via his X (Twitter) and Bluesky profiles.
