Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
It was a light weekend. Prema confirmed its IndyCar lineup. Sauber hired a Brazilian. Red Bull tested a world champion. Formula E tested as its season opener is less than a month away. MotoGP has a new home for its finale. Lamborghini is possibly leaving the FIA World Endurance Championship across the board, Hypercar and GT3. Joey Logano won his third NASCAR Cup Series championship with a victory in Phoenix. However, with the NASCAR season completed, this is a chance to look into 2025 and what will be different, at least over the first few months of the season, as NASCAR and IndyCar will share a new home.
The New Relationship
It has been two months since the IndyCar season ended, and there are still around four months until the 2025 season opener from St. Petersburg. One-third of the offseason down, two-thirds to go.
When IndyCar does return, it will be on a new network in the United States, as Fox takes over from NBC in what is a multi-year deal. All 17 IndyCar races are scheduled to air on network television, a first for the series. It will also be a continuation of sorts, as there will be a familiar, shared partner on the Fox family of networks.
Unlike the previous decade where the second half of the IndyCar season saw it and NASCAR share a television partner, IndyCar and NASCAR will share a television partner for the spring portion of the season rather than the summer portion.
With NBC, we saw IndyCar and NASCAR races sometimes strategically scheduled to allow one to lead into another, whether it be Mid-Ohio ahead of the NASCAR Cup race on the Chicago streets or a Loudon Xfinity race leading into a Saturday night race from Iowa. It wouldn't always go as planned. IndyCar's 2018 season finale from Sonoma saw the opening lap missed due to the Cup race from Las Vegas running long. The thought was there though.
There would be promotion for both series during each other's races. There were years when NASCAR would run at Daytona on Saturday night and push an IndyCar race the following afternoon. For a few seasons, the Bristol night race would be the night before IndyCar at Pocono. It was a home for motorsports and it did its best to make sure the rising tide lifted all boats, making sure motorsports fans knew where to watch the action.
Moving to Fox, the door is open for this continuing, and it likely will. We have already seen IndyCar present on some Fox properties. In the days after the announcement of the 2026 Grand Prix of Arlington, a promo for the Indianapolis 500 was on the Dallas Cowboys broadcast. An IndyCar show car was used during Fox's college football pregame show. These are minor things but a start. When NASCAR season begins, there should be more of the same.
It will be interesting to see how NASCAR is used to promote IndyCar. For starters, there is less crossover, and this partnership comes at a changing time on the NASCAR media landscape. While the opening portions of the season will align, only five IndyCar races will take place during Fox's portion of the NASCAR schedule, as Fox's new contract with NASCAR only covers through the All-Star Race on May 18. They fell a year late on what would have been an incredible day of motorsports with the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 taking place on the same network. Next year's Coca-Cola 600 will be the first NASCAR Cup race on Amazon Prime.
There is also less NASCAR that will be on Fox airwaves this spring. Outside of the Daytona 500 and the All-Star race, practice and qualifying will be on Amazon Prime during that time of the year. NASCAR's second division will be entirely on the CW and have no presence on Fox. The Truck Series is still there, but there will be fewer NASCAR windows for an IndyCar promo to fall in. If NASCAR viewers are scattered to the wind next year, they are not going to be seeing anywhere near as many possible IndyCar promos as they would have last year or at any point over the last decade.
Five races are not many, but that is more than none. However, as we saw with NBC, just because the same network has both series does not mean races will not be scheduled against one another. Fox has multiple sports properties. It doesn't just have IndyCar and NASCAR. In the springtime, it still has college basketball. It has spring football with the UFL. IndyCar and NASCAR aren't just working around each other but around all those other properties as well. What might seem obvious might not be practical in practice.
We saw with NBC IndyCar races and NASCAR races occurring simultaneously on its family of networks, whether that be an IndyCar race starting at 2:00 p.m. on NBC and a NASCAR Cup race starting at 2:30 p.m. on USA or vice versa. IndyCar has the favorable spot of network Fox, but that doesn't mean a Cup race will not be happening at the same time on FS1.
Time is finite. There are only one or two golden windows for viewership, and they are the same for all properties. The best time to show both races could be the same time. In that case, it is a real possibility we will see both series running simultaneously again, even if we think that doesn't make any sense.
We should also remember that NASCAR is NASCAR. IndyCar might have it in its contract that all of its races will be on Fox, but NASCAR still draws three times the average viewers. As much as people celebrate noon start times if it avoids going head-to-head with a Cup race, we have also seen noon starts not provide an increase in viewership and also see a decrease in attendance at the circuit. Look at the final few races held at Texas Motor Speedway when the local start time was 11:00 a.m. Look at what happened at the second race of the Iowa doubleheader last year.
There will be favorable windows for IndyCar, but there also is a good chance there will be a weekend or two where scheduling is not putting IndyCar on a pedestal. That is a nature of the business and until IndyCar increases its average viewership significantly, it will take a few lumps along the way.
Though there are five shared weekends, four see both series running on the same day. Those are March 2 (St. Petersburg/Austin), March 23 (Thermal/Homestead), April 13 (Long Beach/Bristol) and May 4 (Barber/Texas). The Grand Prix of Indianapolis takes place on May 10, a day before the Cup race from Kansas. There is a Truck race scheduled for May 10 from Kansas.
If we are looking at the schedule and know how start times are historically assigned, there are probably going to be at least two if not three weekends where the two series will be happening simultaneously. Ten of the first 13 Fox Cup races this year had a 3:00 p.m. or 3:30 p.m. start time. That is problematic for Thermal and Long Beach, two IndyCar races that are likely not starting any earlier than 3:00 p.m. Even Barber usually has a slightly later start time in the Central Time Zone.
Let's just keep this in mind now before we find out the actual start times.
If there is anywhere this synergy will help it is the Indianapolis 500. The Indianapolis 500 will be promoted during NASCAR races. That hasn't happened pretty much ever. At least not since 2000 when ESPN and ABC broadcasted eight of the first 11 Cup races that season. While IndyCar and NASCAR had shared partners in ABC/ESPN and NBC, those were during the back half of the season. Fox has had a stranglehold on the first four-plus months of the Cup season since 2001, and until 2025 Fox hasn't had a reason to give the Indianapolis 500 the time of day.
With the Coca-Cola 600 going to Prime, the Indianapolis 500 will be the final big race on network television on Memorial Day weekend. ABC/ESPN will broadcast the Monaco Grand Prix in the morning (and likely re-air it during the afternoon), but after the Indianapolis 500, there will not be the Coca-Cola 600 on Fox. I think there is understandable skepticism over how NASCAR will do on Prime. We have seen Thursday Night Football be a success for Prime, but the NFL and NASCAR are two different beasts. People flock to the NFL. NASCAR has had an aversion to streaming and its fanbase has not embraced it with open arms.
There is a chance the Indianapolis 500 gets a boost because there is a portion of viewers who will not be able to watch the NASCAR race from Charlotte and they decide they will spend their afternoon watching Indianapolis before going out in the evening and forgo watching the NASCAR race altogether.
However, the Indianapolis 500 is not the problem. IndyCar doesn't have an issue getting viewers for the Indianapolis 500. That is its only healthy race. We have seen a healthy Indianapolis 500 does not equal a healthy IndyCar Series, and that is where IndyCar needs to see a boost. IndyCar needs a significant increase everywhere else. A flat Indianapolis 500 rating with every other race getting double what the average is currently would be a massive success for the series. There might be some disappointed if the Indianapolis 500 does not get a better number, but IndyCar needs 16 races growing and one remaining stagnant versus one race marginally growing and 16 races remaining stagnant.
That will take more than just having two or three promos during NASCAR broadcasts. Hopefully the series understands that. Once NASCAR is done with its Fox portion of the season, IndyCar is losing its pair of shoulders to stand on. There is Major League Baseball, but there isn't another property that gets you excited about promotion. Outside of the Super Bowl in February, there is going to be no NFL help. The UFL season ends before IndyCar reaches its halfway point. There is some soccer and the NHRA, but neither of those are going to be doing much for IndyCar. If there is any saving grace it is the 2025 season finale from Nashville falls on the opening weekend of the college football season, but at that point it will feel like too little too late. If you haven't watched any IndyCar to that point, you will need a damn good reason to start with the finale from a nondescript track 40 minutes outside the city it claims to be in.
This is stuff IndyCar will have to work through. It is natural stuff when it comes to a new relationship. It is not all sunshine and rainbows. No matter where you go and who you partner with, at some point you will need to work through some rough patches. It is best to acknowledge those now and limit the number of surprises later.
Champions From the Weekend
You know about Joey Logano, but did you know...
Justin Allgaier clinched the NASCAR Grand National Series championship with a runner-up finish at Phoenix, his first career championship.
Ty Majeski clinched the NASCAR Truck Series with a victory at Phoenix, his first career championship.
Sho Tsuboi clinched the Super Formula championship with a pair of runner-up finishes from Suzuka.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about a few champions, but did you know...
Riley Herbst won the Grand National Series race from Phoenix, his second victory of the season.
Kakunoshin Ohta swept the Super Formula races from Suzuka, his first two career victories.
Coming Up This Weekend
Supercars concludes at Adelaide.
The MotoGP title will be determined in Barcelona, a replacement venue for Valencia after the recent flooding in the area.
