The World Cup stages its final match Sunday, which aligns well for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES.

Both sporting events will air live on FOX, with soccer’s championship game poised as a strong television lead-in to the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix presented by OnlyBulls at Nashville Superspeedway. With the former potentially drawing an audience of 40 million, INDYCAR officials hope that a large percentage of those viewers not only witness the start of the race but enjoy it enough to stick around.

SEE: Nashville Event Details

The result could earn one of the series’ largest viewership ratings of the season.

Given the fluidity of soccer’s game length, INDYCAR will be flexible with its start time. But this much is clear: The green flag figures to wave as quickly as possible following soccer’s post-match ceremony. Figure that’s about 5:30 p.m. ET.

A pre-race show begins at 4:30 p.m. on FS1.

Racing on an oval usually delivers considerable action, and last year’s Nashville race did just thing. There were 284 passes for position, including 130 in the top 10 and 74 in the top five – track records all. Twelve drivers led.

This will be the 11th series race at the facility east of Nashville but only the third since 2008. Two of the sport’s brightest stars were marquee session winners last year: Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward won the NTT P1 Award in qualifying, and Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden (photo, top) won his hometown race for the first time.

Alex Palou

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou finished second in what was the season finale and afterward was officially crowned as the series champion for the fourth time in the past five years (photo, above).

CGR’s Scott Dixon is a three-time race winner on this oval, and his decision to leave his team of the past 25 seasons remains a hot topic even as the series gets back to work following a one-weekend break. Felix Rosenqvist is the other driver on the move at year’s end, departing from the Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian team that helped him to Victory Lane in the recent Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. Both drivers will join Arrow McLaren for 2027.

Dixon and Newgarden are the only drivers in this weekend’s 25-car field to have won INDYCAR SERIES races on the track. Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson have won series races in Nashville, but that was on the street circuit.

O’Ward dominated the early part of last year’s race, leading 116 of the first 126 laps. But contact in Turn 2 relegated him to the 24th finishing position.

Newgarden led 60 laps. ECR’s Alexander Rossi (16) and Palou (11) also led double-figure laps. Palou leads this year’s standings by 56 points over Kirkwood.

This race will be 300 laps, and at nearly 400 miles it will be the second-longest race of the season next to the “500” at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Last year’s Nashville race was 225 laps.

As was the case the past two years at Nashville, this oval race will feature two different Firestone Firehawk tire compounds with which teams can work.

The TV ratings should be the big difference. Last year’s race averaged 1.142 million viewers, the most-watched Nashville race since 2021, and viewership peaked at 1.338 million. This time, those numbers are expected to be larger with benefit of the World Cup lead-in. How large remains to be seen.

The weekend schedule kicks off with the first practice at 10 a.m. ET Saturday on FS1. Later that day, qualifying for the NTT P1 Award will be at 3 p.m. on FOX and the final practice at 6 p.m. on FS2. Sunday’s race will be the 12th of 18 staged this season.