This past weekend FOX produced its first IndyCar broadcast of a new partnership, televising the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and showcasing Alex Palou’s jumpstart on the 2025 season.

The broadcast was the culmination of an offseason filled with heavy investment by the network, which included the production and wide distribution of multiple high-quality commercials featuring the sport’s top drivers.

Though there was a lot of work that led up to the first race of the year, the early races of the season can be seen as a precursor to the Indianapolis 500 in late May.

IndyCar’s marquee event traditionally draws five or more times the television audience, and fans regular fill over 300,000 seats to watch the race in person at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Speaking during the St. Pete weekend, FOX Sports CEO Eric Shanks talked about plans already in motion for the Indy 500. He also gave a preview of the ambitions he has towards increasing the prevalence of wagering on the outcome, building on the model used in horse racing.

“We are going to blow the doors off of Indy,” said Shanks. “We’re going to bring everything that FOX has to bear.

“We have personalities that we probably haven’t announced yet, but there will be an enormous amount of FOX personalities and non-FOX personalities doing everything that you could imagine there. We’re going to be cross-promoting with our other sports, and I think we have a two and a half hour pre-race show that day.

“The other thing with the 500 that I’m working on really hard with these guys is I really want to turn the Indy 500 into more of a Kentucky Derby day from a wagering standpoint.

“It’s hard to understand how to wager on motorsports. You just kind of don’t get it, but on Kentucky Derby day even if you don’t know anything about horseracing, you put down an exacta or a trifecta, you got win, place, show.

“How can we figure out how to get that type of broad attention around an event that honestly kind of feels a lot like horseracing that day? That kind of stuff we’re working on as well and hopefully have an announcement in the near future.”

Wagers on races are already available to the public in the US, with fans in many states being able to put money on the winner of the most popular motorsports events right from their phone.

It seems that Shanks and FOX would like to have more focus put on the wagers available, however, in order to draw in people that are not necessarily fans of IndyCar.

The 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 takes place on May 25, with Josef Newgarden looking to become the first driver in history to win the event in three consecutive years.

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FOX Sports has released viewership numbers for the opening round of the 2025 IndyCar season, showing a sizeable increase over last year’s event.

According to the network, Sunday’s race from St. Petersburg averaged 1.417 million viewers and peaked at more than 1.8 million.

The race reached approximately 45% more people than last year’s season-opening round, which reached 975,000 through broadcast partner NBC.

The 1.417 million figure ranks it very highly among the series’ historic television viewership numbers, and makes it the most watched IndyCar event outside of the Indianapolis 500 since 2011.

For comparison, the 2024 Indy 500 averaged over five million viewers. The marquee event is an outlier, however, and the other races from 2024 averaged just 637,000 viewers per event.

There was a lot of interest in the television ratings for the first race of the series’ new partnership with FOX Sports.

FOX has invested considerable resources in IndyCar over the past few months, including producing multiple high-quality commercials that have been run during the Superbowl and played often on all of FOX sports’ other broadcasts over the past few months.

The network also brought in well-known commentator Will Buxton to be the lead presenter, hoping to bring in new viewership from multiple different areas.

At least for the first event, it appears that the extra investment has worked. Many fans tuned in to watch Alex Palou secure the early advantage as he tries to win his third consecutive championship.

The network will continue to monitor viewership closely to see if interest in the series continues throughout the year.

Every race of the 2025 IndyCar season will be broadcast on the network’s main FOX channel, which helps make it accessible to anyone who wants to tune in.

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FOX Sports has announced the trio of talent that will present the NTT IndyCar Series on television for the upcoming season.

The broadcast booth for the new TV deal will feature Will Buxton, James Hinchcliffe, and Townsend Bell on site at each event.

Hinchcliffe and Bell are retained from NBC’s recent broadcast crew, with both being praised by fans for bringing their expertise as race-winning drivers to a wider audience.

Buxton returns to FOX after spending a majority of his time over the past seven years covering Formula 1 as the series’ in house reporter.

The 43-year-old does have experience in American motorsports as well, having started his broadcast career in 2010 working as a pit reporter for the US-based SPEED Channel back when it produced its own F1 coverage.

He has also covered IndyCar at various points in his career, and has often shown a keen interest in the series even as he covered other forms of motorsports.

New Role in the Booth

“I’m absolutely thrilled to be embarking on this new and incredibly exciting opportunity to return to FOX, exactly 15 years after SPEED Channel offered a young and very green reporter his first break on network TV,” Buxton said.

“I’ve been a fan of the NTT IndyCar Series for as long as I’ve been watching racing cars and have always marveled at the skill and bravery of its incredible drivers.

“To have the chance to tell their stories and call their races is a dream come true, and something I never imagined I’d have the honor of doing. It’s a tremendous responsibility, and not one I take lightly.”

Buxton is officially labeled as the lead play-by-play announcer, with Bell and Hinchcliffe serving as race analysts for the entire 17-race season.

Additional details provided by the release confirmed that Pam Miller will serve as FOX IndyCar producer, and Mitch Riggin will serve in the director role.

The new television deal will continue to see coverage simulcast in the UK via Sky Sports, and will be available in over 200 countries around the world.

The first race of the 2025 season takes place on the streets of St. Petersburg on March 2, and all races will be broadcast on free, over-the-air FOX affiliates.

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The NTT IndyCar Series and FOX Sports have released the US broadcast start times for the 2025 season.

Defined race start times were not part of the announcement, but the green flag will likely wave for most events within 30 minutes of the broadcast start time.

Most events appear to have roughly the same start time as the previous year, with a few notably moving earlier in the afternoon.

Laguna Seca and the first race of the Iowa Speedway double-header have both shifted three hours forward.

The earlier event at Laguna Seca, starting at noon local time, could potentially give less time for the region’s famous marine layer clouds that wash over the track nearly every morning to clear away.

An earlier time for Saturday’s Iowa race is beneficial for the race teams working the event, some of which were working until the middle of the night last year making repairs to their cars ahead of Sunday’s race.

The earlier Iowa time, along with an earlier start time for World Wide Technology Raceway, does mean that there are once again no night-time or evening races scheduled unless weather pushes an event past the daylight hours.

Expanded coverage for Indy 500

A full two hours of pre-race programming will be shown for the 109th Indianapolis 500, giving fans of the most-attended motorsports event plenty of chance to prepare for the big race.

“The unrivaled exposure FOX will bring to the NTT IndyCar Series, including an additional hour of Indy 500 pre-race coverage, will prove to be a spectacular showcase for our drivers and teams,” Penske Entertainment President and CEO Mark Miles said.

“With FOX’s tremendous partnership and support, we’re going to bring the most competitive and compelling motorsport on the planet to a growing and massive audience. We cannot wait to raise the curtain on the 2025 season with FOX.”

All 17 races on the 2025 calendar will be broadcast on over-the-air FOX affiliates in the US, a major perk that helped lure the series away from its longtime television home of NBC.

Coverage of all practice and qualifying sessions will be shown on FS1 or FS2, FOX Sports’ paid television networks that are offered through cable and satellite TV packages.

Details about how FOX plans to offer streaming solutions for cord cutting fans have yet to be revealed, and the broadcast talent identified to call the races has also not been announced.

The first race of the new FOX broadcast deal takes place on March 2 from the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida.

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Michael Strahan, an American football Hall of Fame athlete and television personality, will drive the Corvette pace car for the upcoming 109th Indianapolis 500.

Strahan was announced as the honorary pace car driver during Fox’s NFL pregame show, with the promotion also highlighting IndyCar’s broadcast change to the Fox network for the 2025 season.

Details of the pace car were also revealed, with the 2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 joining Strahan on stage for the announcement.

The Corvette has 1,064 horsepower and is capable of reaching a 233 MPH top speed, although it will not reach those speeds while leading the field of 33 cars to green.

“This is my ride, right here,” explained Strahan on Fox NFL Sunday. “I’m going to drive the pace car. I love this car. This is bad!

“I know it’s a great car, I got all the drivers behind me because I’m leading the pace. I’m going to see if they can keep up!”

Strahan joins other famous pace car drivers including Morgan Freeman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Robin Roberts, Patrick Dempsey, Ken Griffey Jr., and Tyrese Haliburton.

He will pilot the powerful car around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 25 for the 109th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

“Michael is an impressive addition to the lineup of all-star athletes and celebrities to serve as honorary Pace Car driver for the Indianapolis 500,” said IMS President Doug Boles.

“From the gridiron to the broadcast studio, Michael is no stranger to leading a fast-paced field. As we kick off a new era of IndyCar and the Indy 500 on FOX, Michael will have one of the best seats in the house for the start of the world’s greatest race.”

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The IndyCar series has found a new U.S. television home for 2025, signing an exclusive broadcast rights deal with Fox Sports.

Fox will see IndyCar significantly step up its television presence with all races featuring on the main network and the Fox Sports app with Fox Deportes presenting exclusive Spanish-language coverage.

With Fox committing to broadcast coverage of both Saturday and Sunday qualifying for next year’s Indy 500, the total number of broadcast windows for the series next season will hit a record high of 19.

The ‘Greatest Spectacle in Racing’ will receive some VIP treatment from Fox, with a dedicated five-hour window of coverage planned for the Indy 500 on Sunday, May 25, 2025.

IndyCar practice and qualifying will be shown on cable via FS1 and FS2, with the majority of the Indy NXT support series being shown on both channels as well.

“This represents unrivaled exposure and provides an unparalleled growth opportunity for the most competitive and entertaining motorsport on the planet,” said IndyCar CEO Mark Miles.

“FOX Sports is a fully committed partner, ready to bring engaging and technically innovative coverage to millions of fans across the country while also promoting INDYCAR thoroughly across all its platforms.”

FOX Sports CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shank added that “Adding the iconic Indianapolis 500 and delivering the entire NTT INDYCAR SERIES to the FOX Sports roster fits perfectly within our model of teaming with sports’ largest events and best-in-class brands.

“We’re honored to be the new broadcast home to ‘The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,’ an incredibly special event to everyone at FOX Sports.”

2025 Calendar revealed

In addition to announcing an exclusive broadcast deal with Fox, IndyCar has also revealed the 2025 schedule of races.

The 2025 IndyCar series will commence with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 02 and a return to the Thermal Club will take place on Sunday, March 23.

Gateway (aka the World Wide Technology Raceway) in St Louis has been moved up to June 15 and the 2025 campaign will conclude at the Nashville Superspeedway on August 31.

Review the full 2025 IndyCar Schedule below:

• March 02: Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
• March 23: The Thermal Club
• April 13: Long Beach
• May 4: Barber Motorsports Park
• May 10: Indy Road Course
• May 25: Indy 500
• June 01: Streets of Detroit
• June 15: Gateway (World Wide Technology Raceway)
• June 22: Road America
• July 06: Mid-Ohio
• July 12: Iowa Speedway Race 01
• July 13: Iowa Speedway Race 02
• July 20: Toronto
• July 27: Laguna Seca
• August 10: Portland
• August 24: Milwaukee Mile
• August 31: Nashville Superspeedway

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