Ryan Blaney insists “NASCAR is currently crushing it” with viewership numbers

Ryan Blaney recently insisted in an X post that NASCAR is performing well in terms of viewership numbers. Jeff Gluck had originally shared his thoughts on X, mentioning that NASCAR’s viewership numbers for the Saturday race were underwhelming.

Last Saturday’s Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta was the first NASCAR Cup Series race broadcast on TNT since July 2014, garnering around 1.608 million viewers. Chase Elliott secured the victory in the race with one of the most chaotic races of the season, which saw 46 lead changes. Despite a competitive race, Jeff Gluck showered his frustration with the numbers, stating:

"Ugh, Saturday night NASCAR races just can't seem to pull numbers. NASCAR says it got an average of 1.6 million viewers for the Atlanta race. Also, if you were wondering about F1 viewership on the F1 movie's premiere weekend, the Austria race got 1.1 million viewers (a record for that race, but only up two percent over last year)."

Jeff Gluck

@jeff_gluck

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Ugh, Saturday night NASCAR races just can't seem to pull numbers. NASCAR says it got an average of 1.6 million viewers for the Atlanta race.

Also, if you were wondering about F1 viewership on the F1 movie's premiere weekend, the Austria race got 1.1 million viewers (a record for that race, but only up two percent over last year).

Replying to this, Ryan Blaney was adamant that NASCAR is 'crushing' the competition and added:

"So, we got 500k more folks tuned in. Why do people make it out to be a bad thing? We crush the parade every week, so why do we get down in the dumps by this? Nascar is currently crushing it."

NASCAR’s average viewership numbers for the 2025 season through the first 18 races yielded approximately 2.88 million per race, which is higher than the current F1 average of 1.3 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN 2, and ABC.

2023 NASCAR Cup Series Champion, Ryan Blaney, is competing in his eighth full-time season for Team Penske. Born on December 31, 1993, in Ohio, he is also a third-generation racer, just like his Dad, Dave Blaney, a former NASCAR driver with Whelen Motorsports, and his grandfather, Lou Blaney, who was a modified dirt track racer.

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Ryan Blaney hints at pending payback for Carson Hocevar after Spire’s post-Atlanta move ‘pissed’ him off

Ryan Blaney expressed frustration after Spire Motorsports posted a mocking meme on X (formerly Twitter) following his loss to Carson Hocevar in the NASCAR In-Season Challenge at EchoPark Speedway. The meme sarcastically thanked Blaney for "accepting their trade", referring to Hocevar's strong performance after the Team Penske star was taken out early in a Stage 2 wreck.

"I saw that and I was, you know, I wasn't really in a mood I was like, 'eh it's speedway racing whatever'. And then I saw that on the plane, I was like, 'well, now you've kind of pissed me off a little bit'. That social media person is gonna have to explain when something happens to the 77 car that it was their fault. So I hope they're proud of themselves for that," he said. (0:24 onwards) (via The Door Bumper podcast)

Blaney responded with a pointed message, reminding Spire Motorsports that he still "owes" them payback for an earlier on-track incident involving Hocevar at Atlanta Motor Speedway, implying that tensions remain high between the two drivers and their teams