Kevin Harvick's podcast co-host questions media silence on NASCAR feeder series closing F1 viewership gap

The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series is facing one of its steepest postseason dips in television ratings, and reacting to those figures, Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast co-host Mamba Smith raised a pointed question online.

Across the last six playoff races - from Darlington through Charlotte - not a single event has surpassed the two-million viewer mark. The Bank of America Roval 400 at Charlotte drew 1.54 million viewers, making it the most-watched playoff race so far, but still a sharp decline from last year’s 2.42 million when NBC carried the broadcast on its main network.

The slump has reopened old debates about whether the current “win and you’re in” playoff format has lost its appeal. At the same time, the NASCAR Xfinity Series has quietly been building its own television success story. This difference was evident during the Charlotte Roval weekend. Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal posted the viewership numbers from this past weekend on X:

"Motorsports viewership in the U.S. last weekend: 1. NASCAR Cup (USA Network): 1.544 million viewers 2. Formula 1 (ESPN): 931,000 3. NASCAR Xfinity (The CW): 808,000 4. NASCAR Trucks (FS1): 279,000 5. IMSA season review (NBC): 168,000 6. ARCA (FS2): 32,000

Kevin Harvick's colleague and NASCAR announcer, Smith, reposted and wrote:

"Why isn’t this getting talked about more?? The Xfinity Series is almost doing the same numbers on the CW as F1 is doing on ESPN."

The current Cup playoff run has averaged just 1.54 million viewers on USA Network, marking the first postseason that could finish below two million. Last year’s same stretch across NBC and USA averaged 2.1 million. By comparison, Prime Video’s five-race summer slate averaged 2.1 million, and TNT exceeded that with 2.06 million, beating one of NASCAR’s traditional cable homes for the first time.

When The CW took over as the Xfinity Series’ new home earlier this year, few expected the kind of consistency that has followed. The Daytona season opener drew 1.8 million viewers, and the first 13 races all topped the one-million mark for the first time since 2014, when the series aired on ESPN. Even as college football reclaimed Saturdays, Xfinity’s audience has grown from last season.

Kevin Harvick (4) leads the start of the 2023 Cup Series Championship race. Source: Imagn

The difference lies in accessibility. While the Cup Series has jumped between six different networks this season, from FOX and USA to Prime Video and TNT, the Xfinity Series has remained a constant presence on The CW. Of the Cup Series’ 39 events, only nine appear on major broadcast networks - five on FOX and four on NBC. The rest are scattered across platforms with a smaller audience reach.

For context, FOX Sports 1 reaches only about 73% of FOX’s base, while USA Network reaches 79% of NBC’s. TNT’s reach sits at 78%, and next year, USA may exit NASCAR altogether amid NBC Universal’s restructuring. Meanwhile, The CW offers Cup-level exposure for a secondary series, with NASCAR serving as a key cornerstone alongside college football.

NASCAR’s seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal for the Cup Series, running through 2031, was designed to balance exposure across both traditional and streaming platforms. But the ongoing fragmentation, combined with declining numbers on cable, has sparked concern that the sport’s flagship series is losing casual viewers in the shuffle.

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Kevin Harvick backs JGR star to win Las Vegas playoff opener

Kevin Harvick (4) speaks to the media at Daytona International Speedway. Source: Imagn

As the Cup Series heads into the Round of 8 this weekend at Las Vegas, the attention shifts back to on-track performance. The South Point 400 will open the next phase of the playoffs at a venue where Toyota’s recent record has been mixed at best.

Analyzing this week’s race on the Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour podcast, Kevin Harvick picked Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 20 Christopher Bell to win at the 1.5-mile oval. He said:

"I’m going to take Bell. I only had one name written down this week... Those guys have the speed, and even on the places where you think somebody else is going to win, they keep showing up. If they can keep themselves from having a catastrophic situation, they’ll have the speed." (51:34 onwards)

Kevin Harvick’s co-hosts split their picks, with Kaitlyn Vincie going for Ryan Blaney, while Mamba Smith chose Chase Briscoe. Bell enters the weekend with five straight top ten finishes and back-to-back runner-up results in the last two fall races at Vegas.