The contrast shows how media distribution can help a smaller league find viewers while making it harder for casual fans to follow one of the world’s largest sports.
A Fishers Freight home game that ended in a loss nevertheless produced a record-setting national audience for the Indoor Football League.
The Freight’s May 16 game against the Jacksonville Sharks at Fishers Event Center recorded 454,134 viewers, according to the league, making it the most-watched broadcast in IFL history. Jacksonville won 68-50.
That audience helped the IFL finish its 2026 season with more than 6.1 million cumulative views across Yahoo Sports Network and Overnght Sports, the largest audience the league has reported.
The IFL entered the season with national distribution agreements involving both streaming outlets. By June 30, league games had generated more than 4.5 million streams and 30.6 million minutes watched on Yahoo Sports Network alone, according to an IFL postseason announcement.
The league described those numbers as an eighteenfold increase in streams and a fivefold increase in hours watched from the previous year. Twenty-six broadcasts surpassed 50,000 viewers, including seven that exceeded 200,000.
“Six million viewers is a major milestone, but more importantly, it’s the foundation for even greater growth ahead,” IFL Commissioner Todd Tryon said.
The Freight completed their second season with an 8-8 record, missing the Eastern Conference playoffs after a 67-63 loss to Orlando on the final play of the regular-season finale.
The IFL’s growth presents a notable contrast with Formula 1, one of the world’s largest sports properties.
Formula 1 entered 2026 after its most-watched U.S. television season. ESPN reported an average of 1.3 million viewers for each of the 24 races in 2025 across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. Sixteen races set event audience records, according to ESPN’s season report.
This year, Formula 1 moved its U.S. coverage exclusively to Apple TV. Data analytics company Samba TV found that household reach declined for eight of the nine races it compared with the corresponding 2025 telecasts, according to a USA TODAY report.
The Miami Grand Prix was down 68%, Monaco declined 66%, Barcelona-Catalunya fell 24%, Canada dropped 23%, Great Britain declined 16% and Austria was down 13%. Australia and China had smaller decreases, while Japan was unchanged.
The largest declines came at races shown on ABC in 2025. Miami averaged 2.17 million viewers that year, Monaco drew 2.3 million and Canada attracted 1.9 million. Moving those races from a widely available broadcast network to a subscription service reduced their potential reach.
The audience figures are not directly comparable. The IFL’s 6.1 million represents cumulative views across a season, ESPN’s 1.3 million was an average per Formula 1 race and Samba measures households rather than individual viewers. The IFL also has not disclosed how many of its views came from people watching multiple games.
Formula 1’s parent company says Apple viewership is up year over year and total hours watched have increased 13%, although it has not released race-by-race totals.
Still, the contrasting trends demonstrate the importance of accessibility. The IFL expanded its distribution, while Formula 1 moved from familiar cable and broadcast networks to a subscription platform.
For Fishers, the result was a national milestone: A game inside the city’s arena became the most-watched broadcast in IFL history.
