IndyCar knows it faced questions about the direction of the series over the offseason and has revealed new ways it’s working to achieve growth heading into the 2024 campaign.
As usual, the Indianapolis-based open-wheel racing property starts its campaign on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., with the Firestone Grand Prix. The race is March 10 at noon ET on NBC, which controls the NTT IndyCar Series’ media rights through 2024 at a cost of around $20 million annually.
Among the offseason developments that hampered IndyCar were the cancellation of what would have been its first console video game since 2004; the delay to the introduction of a new hybrid system for its cars; and an announcement that it was moving its season finale location of downtown Nashville to a track in the Nashville suburbs due to complications stemming from the construction of the Tennessee Titans’ stadium.
IndyCar is owned by Penske Entertainment Corp., which bought the series and the fabled Indianapolis Motor Speedway for roughly $300 million in late 2019.
The property has some positives going into the new season. Amid a renaissance of interest in motorsports, IndyCar says it has had several media companies hold discussions about acquiring its rights. Mark Miles, the president and CEO of Penske Entertainment, said he’s expecting an increase in the value of the rights and that a deal could be done by this year’s Indy 500 at the end of May.
The series is also in talks with a major metropolitan area that Miles declined to disclose as it looks for schedule innovation; it’s on track to debut the hybrid system in the middle of this season, just as hybrid road car sales accelerate as electric car sales slow their pace; viewership has risen by double digits since 2018; and attendance remains a genuine strong point.
IndyCar is again expecting well over 300,000 people to attend this year’s 500, which will have Kyle Larson becoming the first NASCAR driver since 2014 to attempt “The Double” of running that race and the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte on the same day.
“People are looking for us to have meteoric growth and anything less can be disappointing to some,” Miles said. “But we feel like we’re on a path of steady growth and when you look at it in perspective, it’s meaningful. That doesn’t mean we’re not interested in accelerating our growth.”
