Fox Sports’ coverage of the NTT IndyCar Series season this year has raised concerns among the NASCAR fanbase about whether the broadcasting giant will pay enough attention to the stock car racing scene. The 2025 racing season marks the start of Fox as the official broadcasting partner of the open-wheeled series, and the company’s marketing campaign surrounding the sport has been well-received by fans.
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Fox flew IndyCar drivers Pato O’Ward, Joseph Newgarden, and Alex Palou to Los Angeles to shoot their new spot commercials and simultaneously promote the 2025 Daytona 500 with largely old footage and highlights. NFL announcer Kevin Burkhardt also narrated advertisements for the upcoming event. However, this did raise concern within the fraternity.
NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief media and revenue officer Brian Herbst does not seem concerned with this possible shift in focus towards IndyCar from the broadcaster as he elaborates on the scenario. “I do not [have any concerns]. They’ve promoted NASCAR through each one of their NFL playoff games.”
“I would expect more during the Super Bowl as well. Any time that a media partner has a new sports property that moves over to their portfolio, so IndyCar with Fox, and I would expect the same thing with NBA with NBC — you would expect a promotional campaign in order to educate the fanbase of that particular sports property,” he opined.
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Herbst also mentioned how a new sport’s introduction to the broadcaster has always seen Fox give them more attention as they try and build a connection of the sport with the fanbase. With NASCAR being broadcast on Fox since 2001, Herbst was also of the opinion that Fox has historically done well with their promotions of America’s most watched motorsports genre.
“They do a fantastic job promoting our sport, particularly in the [leadup] to the NFL playoffs as you get into the Daytona 500,” he added, solidifying the governance’s belief in Fox.
With NASCAR’s continually decreasing fanbase, especially if compared to the sport’s heyday in the era of drivers such as Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon, the consensus among the fanbase is that stock car racing also needs an injection of proper marketing, just as IndyCar has received this season.
With Fox focussing on driver’s personalities, an asset the sport cannot get rid of in any circumstance, fans are being lured into watching the sport as it is human tendency to align with a personality that seems human and likable, rather than a cold, straight-forward, machine-like charade.
It will be interesting to see how Fox manages the marketing scales over the 2025 season of racing. With their initial focus on IndyCar, one would assume NASCAR would gain their attention back owing to the difference in current viewership of the two series.
