Indianapolis Motor Speedway reveals attendance numbers from Brickyard 400

A lot of folks online talked about the attendance at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and now we have the Brickyard 400 numbers. It was slightly down year over year for this year’s race. It is the second year of the NASCAR race returning to the oval.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway can fit 300,000 fans. So, the roughly 70,000 fans in attendance didn’t look like a packed house. However, there were areas of the stands that were full of fans.

Nathan Brown of the Indy Star reported on the slight decrease in fans for the Brickyard 400 on Sunday. I’m not sure anyone at NASCAR or IMS will lose sleep over these numbers.

IMS hosted just under 70,000 fans for the Brickyard, down a few thousand from '24 (just over 70k) which marked a return to the oval & the race's 30th anniversary, per @jdouglas4.

Before formal walk-up numbers, Boles estimated IMS to be down 5-6,000 YOY. https://t.co/IXHW2He6bV

— Nathan Brown (@By_NathanBrown) July 28, 2025

For reference, a sold-out Darlington Raceway fits fewer than 50,000 fans. Iowa Speedway next week has fewer than 30,000 seats. That race is sold out. There is perhaps only one race this season that will have more than 70,000 fans, and that race has already come and gone, the Daytona 500.

At its smallest tracks, NASCAR is able to sell out. North Wilkesboro, Iowa, and even Rockingham Raceway this season were or are going to be sellouts. Those tracks more or less hold as many fans as the largest basketball arenas in the country.

Then you have tracks that NASCAR is able to pull 40,000 to 50,000 fans. The Daytona 500 drew over 150,000 fans. On a consistent basis, college football and the NFL are really the only sports that are able to outdraw NASCAR, especially a race like the Brickyard 400.

Brickyard 400 returns for second straight year

I think what we need to remember is how boring and terrible the Indy Road Course really was. It wasn’t an enthralling race, the in-person experience was worse than the oval, and no one valued the race in the same way during those few years.

In today’s sports world, in-person attendance is largely going down. People have high-definition televisions and surround sound, and their favorite seat at home. It’s a different situation in 2025 than in 2005.

The Brickyard 400 should remain in its current form. Racing on the oval is historic and reverent and it means more to the drivers. It inherently makes the racing better, too. Does it rely heavily on strategy? Yes. But that isn’t much different than the race has been, with exceptions, for many years.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway is sacred ground. Taking the race off the oval makes it just another race. As we could see from Bubba Wallace’s reaction, it is anything but just another race.