Fox Sports' Bold IndyCar Campaign Achieves 90% Positive Buzz on Social Media!

Fox Sports' IndyCar Marketing Campaign

Fox Sports’ IndyCar marketing campaign has made significant waves in the racing world, resulting in a remarkably positive social media sentiment as it approaches its 2025 campaign, according to data from Endeavor Analytics.

Starting this season, Fox Corp. is airing the Indianapolis-based open-wheel racing property’s events in a multiyear deal, having filmed three ads featuring three drivers to build excitement for the upcoming season opener next month.

The ads have taken a risqué approach, with the first featuring two-time Indy 500 champion Josef Newgarden showcasing a scene of a racing sperm cell, along with a cameo by Tom Brady. The second highlights three-time series champion Alex Palou reminiscing about kissing girls in preparation for kissing the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s famous bricks. The third ad, featuring McLaren Racing driver Pato O’Ward, is set to air during Super Bowl Sunday.

Since last September, over 22,000 social media posts have mentioned IndyCar in conjunction with the terms “NFL” or “Fox,” with 71% of the engagements coming after January 12, when Fox aired the Newgarden ad during the Buccaneers-Commanders NFC Wild Card game. These posts generated 1.8 million engagements, predominantly through X and blogs.

Following January 12, nearly 170,000 engagements related to the two specific commercials were recorded, with a positive sentiment of 88%. The negative or neutral comments, which comprised 12%, mainly critiqued Fox for allegedly not giving NASCAR the same level of attention or commented on the sperm imagery in Newgarden’s ad. Reddit contributed to 7% of these posts, while X accounted for 91%.

As of January 29, the IndyCar on Fox Instagram account has garnered over 825,000 video views for the two spots, along with more than 55,000 engagements from collaborative posts with IndyCar, Fox Sports, and NFL on Fox accounts. Additionally, the two ads attracted about 27,000 views on YouTube and 2,000 engagements on that platform.

Fox’s marketing efforts surrounding IndyCar have drawn attention from some NASCAR fans, who felt the network wasn’t providing the same promotional support to the stock car series. Although Fox has advertised around the Daytona 500 this offseason, the 30-second commercial produced for NASCAR mainly utilized old highlights, contrasting with the fresh content created for IndyCar featuring Newgarden, Palou, and O’Ward.

Brian Herbst, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief media and revenue officer, stated that NASCAR is not concerned with Fox’s promotional focus this offseason, emphasizing that IndyCar is new to Fox this year, while NASCAR has been part of Fox’s programming since 2001. NASCAR’s recent season-opening Cook Out Clash exhibition attracted 3.08 million viewers on Fox.

Herbst remarked, “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 to educate the fanbase of that particular sports property...”