As a part of NASCAR's new seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal with existing partners Fox and NBC as well as newcomers Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports, Fox and NBC both lost a number of races – four and six, respectively – to make way for Prime and TNT to have five races each.
One of NBC's two major losses was this past weekend's race on the Chicago Street Course, which was added to the schedule in 2023 and was one of the most-watched races of the year in both 2023 and 2024.
It came as no surprise that this year's viewership numbers for the 75-lap Grant Park 165 around the 12-turn, 2.2-mile (3.541-kilometer) street circuit in Chicago, Illinois were down, but NASCAR lost nearly half of its audience by moving the race off of NBC network and onto TNT Sports.
NASCAR suffers rough blow moving Chicago off NBC
This year's race, won by Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen, drew only 2.1 million viewers, less than half of the 4.6 million total from two years ago and just over half of last year's 3.9 million tally.
Notably, the 2023 and 2024 races, won by van Gisbergen and Hendrick Motorsports' Alex Bowman, respectively, were both impacted by rain and still managed to draw an audience far greater than what this year's race produced.
.@TNTdrama + @TruTV got 2.1 million viewers for Sunday's third edition of @NASCARChicago; that doesn't include streaming, and this year was on cable, but that's down from 3.9 million last year on @NBC network and from 4.6 million in 2023 in the inaugural running on NBC network. pic.twitter.com/vXOsTlkcTO
— Adam Stern (@A_S12) July 8, 2025
As stated, drops were expected. But this was a massive dip.
To compare, Fox's big loss of the new media rights deal was the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the crown jewel event which was moved to Amazon Prime Video to kick-start their first-ever five-race broadcast stint.
The 2024 race, which was shortened by rain, drew 3.1 million viewers. The 2023 race, which was postponed due to rain, drew nearly 3.4 million. In 2022, the race was not affected by bad weather and drew over 3.8 million.
Even after the move to Prime, this year's race still drew over 2.6 million average viewers. Sure, there was still a drop, but this was nowhere near the drop-off seen by the Chicago race.
Would Chicago viewership still have dropped off by that much had the race remained on NBC? Probably not. Having said that, a drop still would have been likely, given the dip from 2024 to 2023 and the fact that there has become a general feeling that the sport's first-ever street course race has already become relatively stale.
In fact, NASCAR is considering moving its street race to San Diego, California next year, with other cities such as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania reportedly in play to host it in the future.
However, let's not pretend that the sky is falling. 2.1 million viewers is by no means "doom and gloom" territory for NASCAR, and this is the first year with TNT as a broadcast partner since 2014.
While it may seem straightforward to some, there are indeed still fans who aren't familiar with the new setup, and that undoubtedly cost NASCAR a handful of viewers after Fox switched over to Prime in mid-May, and then again following the switch from Prime to TNT a couple weeks ago.
Moving forward, let's also not forget the fact that NBC lost the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway as well. This race is still considered a crown jewel race by many even though it was left off the calendar from 2021 to 2023 in favor of an Indianapolis road course race. Last year's race drew 3.63 million viewers. What will this year's numbers look like on TNT?
TNT's coverage is set to continue this Sunday, July 13 with the Toyota/Save Mart 350, which is set to be shown live from Sonoma Raceway starting at 3:30 p.m. ET.