NBC Sports has revealed that the 47th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, won by Josef Newgarden after a close three-way battle in the final stint, generated the most viewers of the race since NBC replaced ABC as the event’s broadcast channel in 2009. It means IndyCar viewership through the first three rounds is the best in 19 years.
The GP Long Beach averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 1.078 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, an increase of 13 compared with last year, despite last September’s edition being the championship finale. Viewership for the race peaked towards its final 15 minutes, when even the TV audience alone reached 1.251 million viewers. The race also posted a 0.64 household rating.
Powered by Peacock, the GPLB delivered an Average Minute Audience (AMA) of 22,900 viewers, the second-highest (barring the Indianapolis 500) streaming audience on record for an IndyCar race behind only February’s season-opener, the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in Florida. The AMA also includes streaming from NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.
Viewership for the 2022 IndyCar season is averaging a TAD of 1.148million, not only the best since 2003, but also up 34 percent on 2021, that featured two races on NBC and one on NBCSN. The GP Long Beach marked the third of the six consecutive races to start the 2022 season on the NBC broadcast network.
TAD is based on data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.
Meanwhile president and CEO of the GP Association of Long Beach Jim Michaelian, revealed that trackside attendance figures will likely reveal the event is back to the levels seen in three years ago, before COVID-19 restrictions caused the event to be canceled altogether in 2020, and postponed by five months in 2021.
“The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is back!” said Michaelian. “The positive trend in pre-sales continued through race weekend and the preliminary results would indicate that the attendance and gross revenue figures will match or exceed what was achieved at the pre-pandemic race in 2019. That year, the attendance figure was slightly more than 187,000.
“A big thank you to all of our fans who came out to support us and we’ll be back April 14-16, 2023 for the 48th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.”
