INDIANAPOLIS — Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks had major aspirations for how his network could transform the Indy 500 in its first year as partners.
Fox launched a glossy ad campaign highlighting several IndyCar stars – with spots running during the Super Bowl — and put the full force of its analysts’ star power behind the race (featuring Tom Brady and Michael Strahan in pre-race roles), among other moves.
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It all seemed to pay off Monday, when Nielsen’s Fast National ratings revealed a mammoth number of average viewers: 7.05 million, the most to watch an Indy 500 in 17 years (7.2 million in 2008).
“Great work to everyone @IndyCarOnFOX,” eighth-place finisher Conor Daly wrote on X. “This is tremendous news!”
“Marketing is neat,” posted Alexander Rossi, who led 14 laps before retiring with a mechanical failure.
Fox Sports said the race peaked with 8.4 million viewers between 4:15-4:30 p.m. ET, which is around the time Alex Palou held off Marcus Ericsson to cross the finish line for his first Indy 500 win. Ericsson was later stripped of his finish Monday when his car was found to be illegal.
The Indy 500 viewership was up 40 percent compared to last year’s race (broadcast by NBC), but that comes with a major caveat: Last year, the race was delayed by four hours.
A similar caveat comes with another statistic. Though the Indy 500 beat the Daytona 500 in viewership this year in a battle of America’s two greatest motor races, Daytona (also broadcast by Fox) had a 3.5-hour rain delay in February.
The large audience saw Palou, who has won the last two IndyCar championships and five of the first six races this season, score his first Indy 500 victory. IndyCar reported Palou was awarded $3.8 million as part of a record-breaking $20.3 million total purse; the average payout for the 33 drivers in the race rose to nearly $600,000.
Fox delivers big time in meaningful race
The viewership number is a significant win for Fox Sports, given that as part of its selling to IndyCar, the company committed to an increase in broadcast TV windows for IndyCar, as well as a big marketing push. But the sell only works if you get a deliverable on the race that means the most to the racing series — and Fox delivered that on Sunday for the race that draws the highest ad rates for an IndyCar broadcast. One small caveat here is that viewership numbers for all sports will get a boost from Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel Technology, which offers better data for out-of-home viewership. But that increase is going to exist for all networks airing sports that use Nielsen for audience measurement. — Richard Deitsch, sports business reporter
(Photo: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
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