Roger Penske group takes charge of 2025 IndyCar Series finale, with new direction for Nashville

Roger Penske's group Penske Entertainment is set to take charge of the 2025 IndyCar season finale in Nashville. An announcement was made on January 23, 2025, revealing that Penske Entertainment will assume the promotional responsibility for the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.

As per the announcement, the Director of Event Promotion and Operations for Penske Entertainment, Anne Fischgrund was named President of the race. However, despite Roger Penske's group’s takeover of the promotional duties, Big Machine remains the entitlement sponsor of the Music City GP.

The final race of the IndyCar season was held at the Nashville Superspeedway for the first time in 2024. However, the Big Machine Music City GP was the least-watched IndyCar race on a network channel in history as the worrying numbers were posted on social media platform X.

According to the data from the sportsmediawatch.com, the 2024 race at the Nashville Superspeedway only accumulated 483,000 viewers whereas the average viewership for the 2024 IndyCar season came in at 1.3M.

This came in as a shock to many as the championship hadn't been decided until the final race of the season, yet less than half a million people turned in to watch the race in Nashville. The next least-watched race after the Big Machine Music City GP was the IndyCar Detroit USA with 608,000 viewers.

Roger Penske's group took over the ownership of the IndyCar series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2019 for an amount between $250M and $300M and since then have invested between $30M-$35M on the IMS alone.

The IndyCar series recently signed a deal with FOX for exclusive broadcasting rights hoping to improve the viewership and popularity of the sport. Roger Penske's group also bought the Long Beach Grand Prix in late 2024.

The takeover of the promotional duties for the 2025 IndyCar season finale possibly came in as a result of the poor 2024 viewership and in a bid to improve the popularity & profitability of the sport as a whole.

Roger Penske-owned group's CEO details the importance of the change for the Big Machine Music City GP

(L-R)Mark Miles, Roger Penske, and Tony George during the Yard of Bricks - Source: Getty

The 2025 IndyCar season begins on March 2nd at the St. Petersburg GP and will continue to be a 17 races long season with the finale in Nashville being held on August 31st. Roger Penske Group’s CEO and President Mark Miles detailed the corporation's move to take the promotional responsibility for Nashville as his statement read:

“Year one at Nashville Superspeedway was a tremendous success, thanks in great part to the terrific partnership and strong leadership exhibited by Scott Borchetta and his team at Big Machine.” [via IndyCar]

“As we grow our event portfolio at Penske Entertainment, it’s strategically important to take the reins of our season finale at such an exciting and renowned racetrack. And to see the relationship with Big Machine carry forward through this continued partnership only underscores the growth opportunities before us in the Music City”, he added.

While the viewership numbers weren't great for the 2024 Big Machine Music City GP, the racing action produced record-breaking numbers at the Nashville Superspeedway with the most on-track passes, passes in the Top 10, and Top 5.