Rolling into this weekend\u2019s Indianapolis 500, both the NTT IndyCar series and Fox are moving at top speed toward their goals for the collaboration.<\/p>\n
In June 2024, IndyCar announced that it was shifting partners from NBCUniversal to Fox and putting all 17 of its races, plus two days of qualifying rounds for the Gainbridge-sponsored Indy 500, on live network broadcasts. The circuit saw immediate dividends during its opening race in St. Petersburg, when Fox drew an audience of 1.42 million\u2014a viewership level IndyCar hadn\u2019t hit since the 2011 Indianapolis 500 and 45% higher than last year\u2019s opener on NBC, according to Sports Media Watch<\/a>.<\/p>\n As Fox announced during its upfront<\/a> earlier this month, IndyCar viewership is up 25% on Fox from the same time last year. That didn\u2019t happen in a vacuum, as Fox began marketing IndyCar in fall and early winter during its college football and National Football League broadcasts, using its other Fox Sports properties to boost awareness of IndyCar.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were able to use that platform to start advertising and talking about IndyCar and the drivers to a wide audience, and that was an important part of the liftoff of the new season and the new relationship with Indy continued that through the playoffs and the Super Bowl,\u201d said Robert Gottlieb, president of marketing at Fox Sports. \u201cWe\u2019ve used our NASCAR broadcast, beginning with the Daytona 500, which has large amounts of motorsports fans, and we\u2019re able to talk to them a lot about IndyCar, and so that all led to a pretty virtuous circle that delivered us to our opener at St Petersburg.\u201d<\/p>\n Gottlieb considers the Indianapolis 500 broadcast an inflection point for Fox\u2019s IndyCar coverage, with much of it building to this stage. During the Super Bowl, Fox\u2019s IndyCar ads focused on 26-year-old Mexican driver Pato O\u2019Ward, who dabbles in Formula 1 with McLaren and came in second at last year\u2019s Indy 500 after a raucous final lap<\/a>. The campaign also featured reigning champion Josef Newgarden, who\u2019s going for his third-consecutive victory after winning the previous two races in Indianapolis on the last lap<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A throwaway line in Newgarden\u2019s ad about how he \u201cloves the smell of unleaded gasoline\u201d amid images of him in a stylized fragrance ad for the fake cologne \u201cEthanol\u201d led to online clamor for a tie-in souvenir. Eventually, a giant bottle of it appeared with Newgarden near the track at St. Petersburg and at other races. Fox marketer Shelby Romero then proposed a collaboration with an actual cologne retailer, which led to a pre-Indy 500 appearance by Newgarden with the fragrance at Macy\u2019s Herald Square on May 21.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s a national competition, if it\u2019s Team USA playing in soccer or hockey or any event, the personalities and the individuals probably don\u2019t come into play quite as much as the uniform,\u201d Gottlieb said. \u201cBut outside of those sports, the need to have personalities and to have individuals that people care about and want to see perform is really important\u2014whether that\u2019s NASCAR, IndyCar, MLB, college football, or beyond\u2014knowing the players and feeling like you care about their performance is always an integral part of bringing people into the sport and into viewing it on on our networks.\u201d<\/p>\n While Fox has been taking its Big Spill milk bottle and race car installation to local Fox affiliates across the U.S. to gather interest for Indianapolis 500 coverage, it\u2019s also had IndyCar figures, including Andretti Global\u2019s Kyle Kirkwood and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing\u2019s Graham Rahal, along to explain the race\u2019s intricacies and history\u2014including why winners drink milk (1936 winner Louis Meyer just liked buttermilk<\/a>).<\/p>\n The faces and stories behind the wheel at this year\u2019s Indianapolis 500 have been invaluable to Fox and IndyCar\u2019s marketing efforts. Gottlieb noted that, since 2021, O\u2019Ward has finished second at the Indy 500 twice and within the Top 5 three times. In his last interview in Indianapolis, visibly and audibly emotional after coming so close to victory, he closed by thanking the crowd for its cheers, saying they \u201cmade Indianapolis a home for me.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n That was basically his audition for Fox\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cPato was an easy one for us as we stepped into this because he\u2019s so charismatic. He\u2019s very young. He\u2019s an amazing driver, and he\u2019s gotten so close to the brass ring at Indy a couple of times now,\u201d Gottlieb said. \u201c[He] showed a vulnerability and an emotion that you don\u2019t often see in today\u2019s athletes, and when you see how raw he was and how much this means to him, and what this quest means to him, that\u2019s incredibly compelling to see an athlete who is in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Newgarden, meanwhile, represents another part of the equation\u2014a \u201cpretty unique character,\u201d a multi-time winner, \u201cwho\u2019s been an eager participant in the stuff that we\u2019ve been doing at Fox to try to make any car grow and become more accessible to more fans,\u201d Gottlieb noted.<\/p>\n However, in becoming one of the faces of the circuit and seeking his third crown at Indianapolis, he now walks a line between hero and heel.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is like the perfect leading man for a race car circuit: He\u2019s young; he\u2019s handsome; he\u2019s ambitious; and he\u2019s an absolute killer on the track. Joseph was a bit of a gift for us,\u201d\u00a0Gottlieb said. \u201cIf this is a guy you can\u2019t be interested in, then you\u2019ve got no pulse at all, and he\u2019s kind of polarizing in the best way: A lot of fans absolutely love and adore him and his dominance at the 500 is something that they revel in, and then there are a lot of fans who think he\u2019s too perfect and can\u2019t wait to see him get his comeuppance.\u201d<\/p>\n Welcome to the fastest racing on earth. March 2 on @FOXTV<\/a>.@IndyCar<\/a> | @josefnewgarden<\/a> | #INDYCARonFOX<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/yWFIOlDVa3<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) January 12, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n At Fox\u2019s upfront, Newgarden shared the stage with an IndyCar luminary who more often prefers a place in the shadows: Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing owner David Letterman. The late-night retiree tested his comedic muscles at the expense of the 500\u2019s multifaceted Borg-Warner Trophy<\/a>, praised Newgarden while wishing Rahal would edge him in this weekend\u2019s event, and went into Indy\u2019s 109th running by testing everyone\u2019s memory of Ray Harroun<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While Letterman hasn\u2019t been a focus of Fox IndyCar marketing or sought its spotlight, his willingness to lend some time to the partnership and help draw ad buyers to races\u2014especially the Indianapolis 500\u2014bodes well for IndyCar on Fox as it accelerates forward.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving David Letterman at the upfront was special, unique, and we were thrilled, but that being said, he\u2019s famously reluctant to use his celebrity in pursuit of anything other than living his own private life at this point,\u201d Gottlieb said. \u201cThe benefit for us of having David Letterman on stage [at the upfront] was it illustrates, in a very strong way, for people who are unfamiliar with IndyCar that there is a strong cross-section of culture and sport that exists around IndyCar.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Forming a race team<\/h4>\n
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The next lap<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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