The return of motor racing’s Formula 1 (F1) series to Las Vegas failed to capture the strong domestic viewership of the 2023 inaugural race, despite seeing Max Verstappen clinch the 2024 World Drivers Championship.
The race, which once again took place on a street circuit constructed across the famed Las Vegas strip, averaged 905,000 viewers on sports broadcast giant ESPN, a close to 30% fall from the 1.3 million average viewership the 2023 edition drew.
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Races in the current 2024 season are averaging 1.12 million viewers on ESPN, the secondary ESPN 2, and the free-to-air sister network ABC, meaning the Las Vegas Grand Prix’s viewership fell well below this average despite being one of the six races this season taking place in a US time zone.
This is ostensibly because, at 10 pm local time in the west of the US, much of the rest of the country was in the early hours of the morning at that point and thus unlikely to watch in any great numbers.
This was done in part to satisfy its more developed markets in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, for which the US Western time zones are particularly adverse.
That race in 2023 was a major media draw due in part to the novelty of a completely new race on the calendar, although both the Drivers Championship and Constructors Championship had been well sewn up by that point.
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By GlobalDataNot only was the race outperformed by the 2023 edition, but was also outdrawn in the viewership stakes by the 2024 Austin Grand Prix (1.3 million) and 2024 Miami Grand Prix (a record 3.1 million), although those two benefitted from much more favorable broadcast time zones.
Disney-owned ESPN holds the rights in the US to F1 until the end of the 2025 season after striking an extension in October 2023. Under that deal, ESPN provides live coverage of all F1 grands prix across its ESPN and ESPN2 channels, with at least 16 races per season aired on ABC.
F1 and ESPN owner Disney have reportedly begun talks over a new media rights deal in the US with a year remaining on their current deal.
The two parties are locked in talks during an exclusivity period that expires before the end of the year, according to the Financial Times.
