IndyCar Bucks The System Of Endless Sports Streaming

For once, a sports league appears to be putting its fan base over its bottom line. Imagine that.

When the IndyCar season begins this Sunday with the year’s first race in Saint Petersburg, Florida, it will do so with a new broadcast partner. But unlike most other professional sports leagues, which have sliced and diced their television licensing rights to maximize revenue at the expense of aggravating fans, IndyCar has done the exact opposite.

One Broadcast Network

Fans who want to watch this open-wheel racing series have a relatively simple option: Tune in to Fox on weekend afternoons this spring and summer — that’s it. No cable partners, no streaming services to mess around with, no trying to remember which broadcast partner carries which race. Just 15 Sunday afternoons (and two Saturday afternoons thrown in) between now and Labor Day on simple, over-the-air broadcast television.

As I noted last spring, most sports, including other auto racing leagues, have moved in the opposite direction. For instance, this Memorial Day weekend will see NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 — a “crown jewel” event of the stock car racing season — air on Amazon Prime, the first time a NASCAR race will air solely via streaming, as part of a package of mid-summer races. For the last several years, IndyCar has broadcast one of its races (usually the Grand Prix of Toronto) and most practice and qualifying sessions solely via NBC’s Peacock streaming service. 

These types of streaming-only scenarios have made it difficult for fans to remember which event airs on which channel — not to mention making it costly by forcing fans to purchase subscriptions to various streaming services if they wish to follow their favorite sports teams. For instance, NASCAR is requiring fans to pay for the Max streaming service to receive access to in-car camera footage and, as mentioned above, a separate Amazon Prime subscription to view five races, including the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend. By contrast, IndyCar’s signature event, the Indianapolis 500, held the same day as the Coca-Cola 600, will again air on broadcast television, this time on Fox after decades on ABC and a recent six-year stint on NBC.

Other Sports Planning to Frustrate Fans

If you think the current situation regarding broadcast access to live sporting events is bad, two recent stories suggest worse to come. For starters, news emerged that Netflix may bid for rights to Sunday afternoon football. While the National Football League’s current deals with CBS and Fox end in 2033, the league can re-bid its TV contracts in 2029. With the prospect of generating more money, you’d better believe the NFL can and will do just that.

On a much-related topic comes word that beginning with the 2025 season this fall, no NFL games will be broadcast exclusively via traditional television, with all having some streaming option. This development goes part and parcel with the news about Netflix bidding for the rights to Sunday afternoon football, as it lays the groundwork for the NFL to yank football from over-the-air television.

One might think that allowing people to access football games via their phones or tablets might make for better viewing for fans, and on its own, it would. But because the streaming access will be geolocated, fans will only be able to watch the team based in their local market, meaning that fans of the Buffalo Bills who live in Florida, for instance, will be out of luck. Couple that news with the possibility of the NFL migrating more games to subscription streaming services and it’s more of the same — greater inconvenience, greater expense — for fans.

Although IndyCar’s new television contract provides clarity on where races will air and restores access to practice and qualifying sessions via Fox Sports, it does have some downsides. The fact that neither the league nor its broadcast partner wants to compete for eyeballs against pro football means that the racing season will now end on Labor Day, before the NFL season begins. But at least one pro sports league designed its new media rights deal with the ordinary fan, rather than the almighty dollar, in mind.