INDIANAPOLIS — The 2024 NTT INDYCAR SERIES schedule was unveiled on Monday. One tidbit listed in the release was that the ticket sales for next year’s 108th Running of the Indianapolis 500 are already at a pace exceeding 2023, when well over 300,000 attended the largest single-day sporting event in the world. It was the second-largest Indy 500 crowd in more than two decades.

With how close last year’s race was to a grandstand sellout, the metrics are pointing already to a potential to see the biggest crowd on Memorial Day weekend here since the 100th Running in 2016.

Overall, it was a big attended Month of May across all days at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Crowds all month exceeded all expectations with a 10% boost in attendance for all practice days on opening week. Qualifying weekend had an estimated 80k between the two days, Carb Day around 75k and race day having all but a few thousand tickets sold. The hype was real. Indy is back.

It wasn’t just in person either. The 107^th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 4.92 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, up 2% vs. the 2022 race (4.84 million), according to Fast National Data released by Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

This past year’s race (12:48-4:19 p.m. ET), which was won by Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden in a thrilling last-lap pass over 2022 winner Marcus Ericsson, delivered a 13 share (percentage of homes watching television at the time of the race), its best in 15 years (2008; 13 share). The race at the time was also the most-watched Sunday afternoon program on the NBC broadcast network in nearly a year, since the final round of the 2022 U.S. Open on June 19, 2022.

The “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” peaked at 5.8 million viewers (4:00-4:15 pm ET) during its thrilling conclusion as viewers watched Newgarden take the checkered flag and then climb into the grandstand to celebrate his first 500 win with the fans.

TV-only viewership on NBC averaged 4.71 million viewers, while streaming across Peacock and NBC Sports’ digital platforms averaged 216,000 viewers, on par with last year (219,000) despite being geo-blocked in the Indianapolis area for the first time. It is the second-most streamed INDYCAR race ever behind last year.

By comparison, the Daytona 500 this year had a 4.4 rating with 8.173-million viewers. However, at least 150k more people were in Indy on Sunday in person than at Daytona this past February too.