NASCAR VP breaks silence on FOX's increased focus on IndyCar amid fan backlash

IndyCar and FOX Sports have gone all-in with their new deal. The Los Angeles-based broadcaster has released two promotional campaigns with the open-wheel racing series but received a backlash for not giving the same love to NASCAR.

NBC had the broadcasting rights for IndyCar in the US since 2009. The broadcaster had agreed to a 10-year deal, which ended in 2019 but was renewed by both parties' willingness to continue with each other. However, this changed with the entrance of FOX in the bidding war, and the latter was able to topple the reign of NBC.

With the turn of the new year, it became the defacto broadcaster in the United States for IndyCar. This led to a series of campaigns featuring Josef Newgarden and Alex Palou being released in the next few weeks, which fans worldwide were stoked with.

On the other hand, FOX Sports has been broadcasting NASCAR races since 2001, but some fans remained unhappy about the love that IndyCar was amassing. NASCAR executive vice president Brian Herbst said (via Sports Business Journal):

"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.

FOX does a great job of promoting each one of their sports properties, like they’ve promoted UFL last year. Anytime there’s a new property launch with FOX, they get behind it in a major way, but we certainly love the marketing and promotional support we get from FOX, value the relationship. They do a fantastic job promoting our sport, particularly in the lead-up to the NFL playoffs as you get into the Daytona 500."

FOX Sports also has the rights to broadcast other series in the United States including the National Football League and its premier event, the Super Bowl.

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IndyCar's marketing campaigns will also get screentime during the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is one of the most expensive platforms for broadcast advertisements. Each advertisement is understood to run for millions of dollars, for a mere few seconds.

With FOX already having the rights to broadcast the game, the senior manager of brand marketing at FOX, Shelby Romero-Brown, said (via Marketing Brew):

"We’d be crazy to not hit the Super Bowl with this campaign. I think it’s always great to get ahead of it and share with the NFL audience and tease what’s on the horizon as far as what they can tune into next."

Moreover, FOX Sports will hold a test for its trio of commentators before the season opener in St. Petersburg to get them up to speed and give the audience a refined broadcast.