While more people watched IndyCar on television, attendance at races climbed as well, by more than 20%.getty images
Four years into his stewardship, there’s almost unanimous agreement in motorsports that Roger Penske has stabilized IndyCar, but a debate remains about whether the pace of growth is quick enough amid rising competition in a challenging landscape.
The series saw its best viewership this year since 2011, with an average of 1.32 million viewers for its 17 races when including digital streaming from Peaco*ck, up 2% from last year. Half of the races in 2023 drew more than 1 million viewers, the same as the 2022 season, which is tied with 2008 for the series’ highest mark. It also was the most-streamed season yet for IndyCar with an average-minute audience of 58,000 viewers on Peaco*ck. Those are crucial numbers for a property whose media rights deal with NBC Sports expires after the 2024 season.
Attendance was up about 22%-24% this season, Penske Entertainment President and CEO Mark Miles told NBC Sports, including a single-day crowd of more than 330,000 people for this year’s Indianapolis 500.
Jonathan Gibson, executive vice president of Penske Corp., pointed to “a tremendous amount of momentum across every part of our business,” citing internal data showing all-time highs in digital media consumption and engagement. He also noted that the quality of drivers is increasing in the series, with many who just miss out on Formula One now choosing IndyCar as their alternative. A high car count for races also points to healthy teams.
Moves Penske is making include improvements well into the eight figures to what had been an aging Indianapolis Motor Speedway; plans for a new team equity system that could end up being in the same vein of NASCAR’s charter system; and schedule shake-ups such as moving the season finale next year to Nashville, staging a $1 million exhibition race at a resort community near Palm Springs, and a likely return to a former fan favorite in the Milwaukee Mile.
Roger Penske and his leadership team have gotten more aggressive in investing in the series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.getty images
Penske bought the open-wheel racing property and Indianapolis Motor Speedway in late 2019 for roughly $300 million, later creating the Penske Entertainment holding corporation to house the assets, which also include IMS Productions. The global pandemic struck a few months later and hamstrung Penske’s ability to immediately start investing in the property, which was once more popular than NASCAR in the U.S. but lost that title around the mid-1990s. Instead, he had to contend in 2020 with holding the first spectator-free Indianapolis 500, which in a usual year helps fund the entire Penske Entertainment portfolio.
As America emerged from the pandemic, Penske and his lieutenants have gotten more aggressive in investing in — and innovating with — the series in recent years, with growth metrics to show for it. But at the same time, IndyCar now faces increased competition from F1’s growing stature in America. NASCAR Holdings also has seen growth and is innovating with both its NASCAR stock car series and IMSA sports car property, adding further pressure on IndyCar.
As IndyCar heads into the 2023 offseason, the question in industry circles is whether its growth is big enough, or coming quickly enough, to respond to those challenges and, in turn, to eventually turn IndyCar into a more lucrative business.
“There’s no such thing as good enough,” said Miles, when asked if series leadership believes its gains were satisfactory. “We will always be looking to grow and to do so from a very solid fan base in the U.S., so we’re not interested in sort of having a year or two growth spurt [and that’s it]; we’re interested in continually growing our fan base in the U.S.”
Rick Ware is one of the most diversified team owners in racing in terms of the number of disciplines into which he enters his eponymous team, and he was full of praise for Penske. Ware is a partial owner of the Dale Coyne Racing No. 51 entry and he also competes in NASCAR, IMSA, NHRA and Supercross.
“Everybody has the same type of complaints — this is a very complex world we operate in and everyone needs more dollars,” Ware said. “But look at what [Penske] is doing with bringing IMSA to IMS, everything he’s done as a businessman, the incentive he’s created, everything is getting better and the future to me looks a lot brighter than it ever has.”
The series’ 2023 average viewership of 1.32 million slightly tops what F1 is averaging so far this year with 1.24 million per race. NASCAR Cup Series races have averaged just over 3 million viewers per race so far this season.
Jon Miller, NBC Sports president of acquisitions and partnerships, said IndyCar’s and the network’s “collective strategy of heavy broadcast exposure combined with streaming on Peaco*ck” continues to be validated by the viewership gains.
As he has said for more than a year now, Miles reiterated his stance that IndyCar doesn’t view F1 as competition, despite how they’re both open-wheel forms of racing. But with both F1 and NASCAR pushing the envelope on innovation, some within IndyCar’s industry are privately wondering whether series leaders need to get more aggressive in areas like marketing, sponsorship and even staffing.
For example, IndyCar has not had an official video game since 2004 — far before Penske’s ownership — but it was finally set to deliver one this year before it was delayed due to issues with its partner on the venture, Motorsport Games. The publicly traded Motorsport Games has indicated in recent public filings that it may soon run out of operating income, which has raised questions about the release of the IndyCar game.
Meanwhile, while IndyCar said it spent more this year on marketing to advertise its sport, with part of the money coming from teams, some sources in racing still think IndyCar is not being aggressive enough in this space. The series also has not been able to land a third engine manufacturer to join Chevrolet and Honda, despite Penske’s deep ties in the car industry.
Some eyebrows were raised when IndyCar backed away from an initial plan to hire a new top marketing executive in the series’ continued quest for a greater number of sponsors, especially consumer-facing brands. After that plan was revealed, Miles later told Sports Business Journal that the current set of Penske Entertainment and IndyCar executives believe they have a proper grasp on marketing the sport, which negated the need to follow through on making the hire.
While it’s unknown why IndyCar didn’t follow through on making the hire, it’s no secret that the series has to be more nimble than its bigger competitors because it has less recurring revenue. The series is believed to take in around $20 million annually for its TV rights, compared to at least $75 million for F1 and a titanic $820 million for NASCAR. That leaves IndyCar with fewer resources to plow back into trying to activate its sport, grow its series and renovate its iconic venue.
Still, Miles was upbeat when asked about whether IndyCar is performing better in terms of profitability. Without disclosing specifics, he cited “really good growth” in sponsorship revenue since the Penske acquisition and said that merchandise sales are up 30% year over year. He also is looking to “make another leap up in rights fees” with the next TV deal, on which IndyCar is consulting with Endeavor.
