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In an exciting reveal during the National Football League Divisional Playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks, FOX Sports debuted the first of its four promotional videos for the 2026 IndyCar season. This video, titled “Perfect Neighbor,” showcases the talents of two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Josef Newgarden from Team Penske, highlighting the creative flair that FOX is bringing to its IndyCar coverage.
Building on the success of the previous year, this marks the second consecutive year that FOX has crafted innovative promotional content featuring prominent figures in IndyCar racing to boost its coverage of the NTT IndyCar Series. The 2025 campaign was widely praised for its originality, spotlighting drivers like Alex Palou from Chip Ganassi Racing, Pato O’Ward from Arrow McLaren, and Josef Newgarden. The 2026 campaign introduces a new face, Will Power, a two-time IndyCar Series Champion and the 2018 Indianapolis 500 victor, now racing with Andretti Global.
FOX’s strategic efforts to spotlight IndyCar played a significant role in the impressive surge in viewership for the racing series in 2025. This momentum has prompted FOX to aim for even greater engagement in 2026, leveraging the creative promotional content to draw in audiences.
IndyCar On Fox Delivered Impressive Growth
Data from FOX Sports highlights that their inaugural season broadcasting the NTT IndyCar Series resulted in the highest viewership growth across any series. The average viewership on FOX and FS1 reached 1.36 million, a remarkable 27-percent increase from 2024, marking the best figures since the 2008 merger of Champ Car and the Indy Racing League into the current IndyCar Series. This increase was the highest audience growth for any sport averaging at least 1 million viewers.
A pivotal aspect of this growth is the enhanced connection with key audience demographics. The P18-34 age group saw an astounding 81 percent increase, while the P18-49 demographic rose by 51 percent. Additionally, the series attracted a significant uptick in female viewers, with a 72 percent rise in the W18-34 demographic.
The average viewers on FOX/FS1 were 1.36 million, a 27-percent increase from 2024 and the most since the 2008 season when teams from Champ Car merged with the Indy Racing League to form today’s IndyCar Series. The 27-percent increase was the most audience growth for any sport averaging at least 1 million viewers.
Most importantly was the connection to a coveted group of viewer demographics. There was a massive lift in the P18-34 and P18-49 demographics. The age group between 18-34 was an 81 percent increase and the 18-49 demographic was a 51-percent increase. The season also saw an increase in women viewers, with W18-34 increasing by 72 percent.
The four IndyCar drivers that are involved in this year’s campaign will be used during commercial breaks in programming on FOX sports and entertainment telecasts through 2026.
This year’s campaign was created by FOX Sports President, Marketing Robert Gottlieb and his team.
IndyCar On FOX Creativity A Year-Round Effort
Pam Miller is IndyCar Producer at FOX Sports. Although the final race of the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season was the August 31 Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway, Miller and her team at FOX Sports have not hit the brakes on preparation for 2026.
“It never stops,” Miller told me. “I don’t think I’ve really taken more than a couple days after Nashville and then just dove right back in.
“It was a graduate school course last year. We learned a lot. We got to know people. We got to know how things work. What things we think we could try to help improve, whether it’s data or graphic development or, like I said, camera placement. There were a lot of things we had to live once before we knew. Maybe the camera should be more on the inside of this turn versus on the outside, and all that type of stuff is what we’ve gathered all this information and kept notes through the year, and now we’re trying to implement that to make things better.
“But we are way farther ahead than where we were a year ago sitting here. It’s been a great experience, but it’s also been a huge learning curve, so we’re just trying to take those lessons and see how we can apply them.”
FOX Corporation An Ownership Partner In IndyCar
In 2024, FOX became a partner of IndyCar, but in 2025, FOX Corporation became a stakeholder in IndyCar by purchasing one-third ownership in IndyCar.
That alignment creates cohesiveness and cooperation between FOX Sports and IndyCar regarding in start times for races, scheduling, venues, and other aspects of the series. FOX has a seat at the table when it comes to IndyCar business.
“I think you nailed it,” Miller said. “Working together to find the best spots, the best time, the time that’s going to have the most impact.
“Putting a race on after the World Cup final where are those spots that we can do that how can we introduce new fans I think that’s all part of the partnership, how we all work together to get people to know be aware when to tune in. I’ve already seen it working great and I can’t imagine that it’s not only going to get better I think There’s a lot of really great visionary people at the table that are all working together to bring more people into, but the racing viewership also that we all know that they’re going to enjoy.
“So, I think putting everybody at the table to work together has been a great thing.”
Josef Newgarden holding a heart from the FOX Sports “Perfect Neighbor” video as part of its IndyCar on FOX promotional campaign.
FOX Sports Photo
IndyCar On FOX Sports Katie Weigel’s Creative Eye
Just a few weeks after the 2025 season concluded, FOX Sports Feature Producer Katie Weigel and a staff or camera operators and technical personnel were in Tryon, North Carolina preparing a feature on the Borg-Warner Trophy and sculptor William Behrends.
Weigel uses her creativity to produce IndyCar features that will be used throughout the 2026 season.
FOX Feature Producer Katie Weigel (left) with four-time NTT IndyCar Series Champion Alex Palou (right).
Bruce Martin Photo
“Even before that (FOX’s ownership stake with IndyCar0 was announced this past season, it being the first one, I am so thankful to have been a part of it,” Weigel told me. “Everything that we got to do from where our stages were, the access we got, our shoots, everything was so cool to just take in.
“And I think even moving forward, we’re just kind of building off of that excitement and that high that we had from that, that truly it is only going to go up from here.”
While many viewers are thinking of football and the NFL Playoffs, FOX continues to expose IndyCar to the audience, through its creative promotional videos that dropped during the third quarter of the 49ers-Seahawks game.
When it comes to creativity, IndyCar on FOX is a year-round effort.
Josef Newgarden in a scene from the “Perfect Neighbor” video from FOX Sports.
FOX Sports Photo
