“Being on at the same time as NASCAR should be a crime”: Parker Kligerman’s hot take on IndyCar’s massive drop in numbers

Parker Kligerman weighed in on the controversial simultaneous broadcasting of NASCAR and IndyCar races last Sunday. The NASCAR driver argued the situation was unfair for IndyCar, as the series saw the biggest drop in viewership in years.

Kligerman, currently a part-time driver for Henderson Motorsports in the Craftsman Truck Series, tried to watch both the Straight Talk 400 and the Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix. However, the 34-year-old had a "hard" time following them, considering the two races started at 3:00 p.m. ET.

In an X (formerly Twitter) post, Parker Kligerman shared his experience watching the two racing series last weekend.

"Being on at the same time as NASCAR should be a crime. I tried watching both but its damn hard to have two races on at once and enjoy both," Kligerman said.

The Connecticut native called for cohesion to improve the viewership of the American open-wheel racing series.

"IndyCar succeeding is better for all motorsports, but we all need to work together," he said.

According to the post, Fox, the official broadcaster of NASCAR and the IndyCar Series, witnessed the "largest falloff in viewership" when the two racing series aired on the same network.

The IndyCar Series had about 1.4 million viewers in its opening race weekend on the streets of St. Petersburg before the ratings dropped to around 700,000 at the Thermal Club on Sunday, translating to about a 50% plunge.

Fox acquired the broadcasting rights for the open-wheel racing series from NBC Sports starting this year. Meanwhile, the company is only covering 14 Cup Series races before other media giants like Prime Video take over.

The Craftsman Truck Series, where Parker Kligerman competes, is also part of Fox's broadcasting schedule.

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Parker Kligerman shares massive increase in Xfinity Series viewership at Homestead-Miami

Aside from his part-time driving duty, Parker Kligerman serves as a race analyst for The CW Network in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. After the Homestead-Miami race, Kligerman reshared an X post about the increase in viewership six weeks into the season.

According to the post, the second-tier series had 1.1 million viewers in the Hard Rock Bet 300, which was over 40% more than the respective sixth races of the last two seasons.

"Xfinity Series at Homestead had 1.160M viewers, up 46% vs. race 6 (Richmond) in ‘24 & up 42% vs. race 6 (COTA) in ‘23. Through 6 races in 2025, The CW is averaging 1.286M viewers, up 30% YoY & has been up 9% or more in every race," Bryan Mapes wrote on X.

Justin Allgaier was the race winner at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He also won $100,000 from the Dash 4 Cash program against three other eligible drivers, including Jesse Love, Austin Hill, and Sam Mayer.

The CW Network is slated to cover the entire 2025 Xfinity Series season. Joining Parker Kligerman in the broadcasting booth are lead play-by-play announcer Adam Alexander and fellow race analyst Jamie McMurray.

In addition, Dillon Welch and Kim Coon serve as pit reporters, while Carla Gebhart is the host of the "NASCAR Countdown Live" in the studio.