Fox Sports aims to tackle fans of its Sunday-afternoon NFL games and drive them over to its new racing programs.
The first season of IndyCar on Fox debuts March 2. In a bid to generate interest, Fox Sports aims to put footage of some of the most popular drivers in the sport in front of football crowds during its telecasts of NFL playoff games and during Super Bowl LIX, which Fox will air February 9. Josef Newgarden, who has won the Indianapolis 500 back to back on two separate occasions, appears in the first promo, which features a cameo from Tom Brady, Fox Sports’ lead NFL analyst.
IndyCar had been at NBC since 2019, and, before that, at Disney, but Fox sees a chance to bring new fans to the NTT IndyCar Series and the iconic Indianapolis 500. Fox already has NASCAR rights that include the annual showing of the Daytona 500. IndyCar represents “something new that we think has some growth opportunity,” says Robert Gottlieb, president of marketing for Fox Sports, during an interview, and the company sees potential to “put more air in the balloon.”
Fox’s Sunday NFL games are among TV’s highest-rated properties, so Gottlieb sees a chance to go both narrow and broad. The promos, he says, will reach the wider game-day crowd and generate awareness among those who might not watch racing or might not be aware the races are coming to Fox. But he also hopes to catch the notice of racing fans, both of IndyCar and NASCAR.
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“First and most important for us is the Indy fan. We wanted them to be really fired, up and excited about the switch to Fox,” says the executive. “We wanted to, in advance, have them feel validated in their love and passion for it, and feel like, yes, Fox gets us. They get this property, this is something new and special.”
Fox Sports on Tuesday named veteran broadcaster Will Buxton to handle play-by-play with James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell offering analysis.
The aim is also to alert NASCAR fans, he adds. “We know that there’s affinity, that if you’re a motor sports fan of NASCAR, you know, it’s a shorter walk to become a fan of Indy,” Gottlieb says. “Our research and our insights on the NASCAR audience was that they had not rejected Indy. They just weren’t really aware of it. and it just wasn’t on their radar.”