Ryan Blaney calls out narrative on NASCAR, F1 ratings: 'We crush the parade every week'

This past Saturday’s Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta was the first NASCAR Cup Series race broadcasted on TNT since July 2014. According to Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal, NASCAR’s return to TNT got 1.608 million viewers.

Jeff Gluck of The Athletic appeared to be frustrated by the numbers for an entertaining race on a Saturday night: “Ugh, Saturday night NASCAR races just can’t seem to pull numbers. NASCAR says it got an average of 1.6 million viewers for the Atlanta race. Also, if you were wondering about F1 viewership on the F1 movie’s premiere weekend, the Austria race got 1.1 million viewers (a record for that race, but only up two percent over last year).”

Ryan Blaney saw things differently. He pointed out that NASCAR topped Formula One viewership, adding, “We crush the parade every week.”

“So, we got 500k more folks tuned in,” Blaney tweeted. “Why do people make it out to be a bad thing? We crush the parade every week, so why do we get down in the dumps by this? NASCAR is currently crushing it.”

NASCAR well ahead of F1 in 2025 viewership

While not a direct comparison, last September’s playoff race in Atlanta got 2.02 million viewers going head-to-head against the NFL on a Sunday. The same weekend last year saw Nashville Superspeedway play host on Sunday night, drawing 3.24 million viewers on NBC.

F1 races are averaging 1.3 million viewers this season across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. While Saturday night was a season low in viewership for NASCAR, it is averaging 2.88 million viewers through 18 races. In the United States, NASCAR reigns supreme over F1, as Blaney said.

It will be interesting to see the viewership trend on TNT over the next four races. All four are set for Sunday afternoon, beginning with this Sunday’s Chicago Street Race. Following the In-Season Challenge portion of the schedule, the remaining 14 races will be broadcasted on NBC and USA Network.