"We are going to blow the doors off of Indy": FOX ramps up efforts to make Indy 500 a 'Kentucky Derby' spectacle

FOX Sports has left no stone unturned in its attempts to promote IndyCar since coming on board as the broadcaster of the 2025 season. In line with this, they have vowed to make the iconic Indianapolis 500 a must-see event.

They are bringing out all the stomps and are even trying to turn the event into a bit of a 'Kentucky Derby spectacle'. FOX Sports CEO Eric Shanks, while discussing the same, said (via Motorsport):

"We are going to blow the doors off of Indy. 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. 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."

Ahead of the ongoing 2025 season, FOX put out several creative driver promos for top drivers like Pato O'Ward and Josef Newgarden, among a few others, to promote the sport on a global basis.

Moreover, they also ran the sport-related advertisements during the NFL Super Bowl weekend. They are adamant about doing the same in their build-up to the Indy 500, with this year's event set to take place from May 21 to 23.

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FOX eyeing to amass 'broad attention' around the 2025 Indy 500

While Eric Shanks has his plans to convert this year's Indy 500 event into a bit of a Kentucky Derby, he has also talked about another aspect. Shanks and his team are fully focused on making the event a Grand spectacle with a global audience during the three-day event.

"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," he said.

The Indy 500 has been taking place since 1911. Over the years, it has produced several top stars, and among them, only six drivers have been able to triumph in the event consecutively.

The most recent driver to achieve this feat was Team Penske's Josef Newgarden, who won the 2023 and the 2024 races. Moreover, last year, Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward was on the fringes of winning the race before Newgarden snatched the victory with a late pass on him.

Other than the modern generation, the Indy 500 has seen quite a few drivers who have been able to secure victories in the event at least four times. AJ Foyt Racing team owner AJ Foyt (seven-time IndyCar world champion), Al Unser Sr. (three-time world champion), Rick Mears (three-time world champion), and Helio Castroneves (315 Grand Prix starts) are all four-time Indy 500 winners.