NBC renews its IndyCar coverage for 2022

By Gary S. Vasilash

There’s the Indianapolis 500. Then there’s everything else.

At least that’s what the numbers seem to say.

The TAD, or Total Audience Delivery.

According to NBC, the TAD for the 500 was 5.581-million viewers.

The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio, which was run on July 4, had a TAD of 1.303-million viewers, which allowed it to best the season opener, the Streets of St. Petersburg, which was at 1.225-million viewers.

Clearly there is a significant gap between first and second places.

But what do those numbers mean?

Well, the National Hockey League recently finished up its Stanley Cup Series.

The Tampa Bay Lightning took it in five from the Montreal Canadiens.

The final game had 3.6-million viewers. The first four games had an average TAD of 2.23 million.

So the Indianapolis 500 crushed the Stanley Cup final but the run of the hockey games annihilate the top races of the IndyCar series.

Oddly enough, NBC, which had hosted the NHL, is no longer going to carry the games, which will shift to ESPN and WarnerMedia.

However, the network just announced NBC Sports will be providing coverage of the entire NTT INDYCAR SERIES on its outlets (NBC, USA Network, Telemundo Deportes).

TAD is clearly a curious metric.