NASCAR’s turn to Amazon Prime Video for five annual races starting in 2025 was a groundbreaking moment and a sign of the times.
Streaming has filled the void for the millions of people that have called it quits with cable, and it was only a matter of time before streaming dipped its toes into the world of live sports. Prime has been the exclusive host of Thursday Night Football since 2022, and Netflix streamed NFL games on Christmas Day last season. In the final years of NBC’s NTT IndyCar Series coverage, the annual street race in Toronto was exclusively streamed on Peacock.
NASCAR and Prime made it official in November 2023, and the world of streaming presented NASCAR with the opportunity to showcase a product that debuted non-stop green flag racing (via race-long side-by-side commercials) and a product that wasn’t controlled by broadcast time restraints.
But NASCAR’s deal with Prime was by no means a slam-dunk decision. In fact, it was quite a risk. Younger generations have led the streaming revolution, but older generations have been hesitant to make the change. And with a median age of 62.8 for the viewers of this year’s NASCAR Cup Series races on FOX and FOX Sports 1, no one knew what ratings lie in store for NASCAR in this new era.
All in all, Prime’s five-race Cup schedule averaged 2.16 million viewers per race — a 16% drop in viewership from the comparable five-race slate on FOX and FS1 last season.
Overall viewership may have been down, but Prime’s coverage managed to capture target audiences that NASCAR has struggled to reach for years. When compared to the same stretch of races on FOX and FS1 last season, Prime saw 36%, 19% and 28% increases in viewership among the age 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 demographics, respectively. There was also a whopping 93% increase in viewership among viewers between the ages of 12 to 17.
Remember how the median age of viewers for the FOX/FS1 portion of 2025 was 62.8? That number dropped to 56.1 on Prime. Those productions saw the youngest audiences for NASCAR in years.
All the gains with younger audiences meant that the overall drop in viewership had to come from somewhere, however, and to no surprise, Prime’s coverage saw a 36% drop in viewers from ages 55 and up.
But make no mistake: Even if the overall viewership was down, those numbers are a home run for NASCAR and Prime Video in their first outing. The sanctioning body gambled on reaching new audiences with Prime, and that’s precisely what happened.
Beyond viewership, Prime’s coverage immediately revolutionized the process of covering NASCAR. The insight and chemistry from its announcers and on-air talent was exceptional, and with non-stop green flag racing and improved camera views, the coverage was never short on action.
Prime’s extended post-race show retained 43% of the viewers from the races themselves, which shows that significant demand exists for interviews and analysis of the racing that took place. Prime’s NASCAR productions also received great praise and fanfare, as its Earnhardt documentary reached No. 1 on the service’s Top 10 chart.
Prime set the gold standard in NASCAR coverage, promotion and analysis, all while attracting new and younger audiences to the sport. And drawing younger viewers is crucial, because the unfortunate reality is that none of us will live forever. NASCAR needs to focus on building its fanbase for not only the remainder of this decade, but also for the 2030s, 2040s and beyond.
And just because NASCAR is chasing new audiences doesn’t mean it’s abandoning its current one. Now that NASCAR is back on cable for the rest of the season with TNT, NBC and USA, the new mission for NASCAR is to find ways to keep both its new audiences and die-hard fans engaged and glued to the TV for the second half of 2025 and into the future.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf