Roger Penske’s Supposed $300M Gamble Rakes In Massive Loss Months After Being ‘Setup for Success’

Weekends, for us, are meant to witness the head-to-head match-up between the drivers, teams, or maybe the team owners. This Sunday, however, was all about the broadcasters competing against each other for a change. The Homestead-Miami race hosted by NASCAR is a major event. A fan favorite, we can say. So is the IndyCar race at Thermal, a significant milestone. Ideally, NASCAR would get their air time on FOX Sports, but the dynamics have changed ever since IndyCar ditched NBC and brought in FOX as their premier partner.

As a result, the Cup Series race at Homestead Miami was shifted to FS1, while the IndyCar event got the exposure from the big FOX. To make matters worse, they decided to clash the timings of the two motorsports events, and let’s just say this gamble has resulted in a huge failure for Roger Penske’s racing series.

FOX needs to rethink their strategy about favoring IndyCar races over NASCAR

Roger Penske’s IndyCar begins play on FOX at 3:22 PM ET, while NASCAR’s green flag drops on FS1 at 3:12 PM ET. Fans interpret it as yet another indication that FOX is giving IndyCar precedence over NASCAR. But here comes the twist! Fox lost its signal in the middle of the IndyCar broadcast. Viewers watching the NTT IndyCar Series’ second event at the Thermal Club were unexpectedly interrupted on lap 28 out of 65 when the broadcast suddenly stopped.

The real twist was when they came back with signal. It was airing NASCAR Cup Series race from Homestead-Miami Speedway! “We want to welcome those of you who have been watching the IndyCar race on FOX. They are having technical difficulties, so we welcome to FOX audience to our NASCAR telecast from Homestead-Miami Speedway,” lead analyst Mike Joy told the audience.

This resulted in a drop-off of 50% viewers between the first and second races of IndyCar and Fox. “That’s the largest falloff in viewership when both races were on the same network, and the least-watched Race #2 on a network channel,” as posted on X.

After noticing up 1,417,ooo views at the St. Petersburg race, a technical error at Thermal Club brought down the FOX viewership to 704,000. The last time there was such a huge difference between the season opener and the next event was in 2017. Unlike today, the broadcasting was split between two partners, ABC and NBCSN. If we are to compare this number with NBC’s worst output for the first two races, there’s a gap of 32%, which came in 2022 when the Petersburg race was followed by the Texas event.

Despite taking away the dates from NASCAR, IndyCar on FOX took a huge hit in terms of ratings. While the technical error did play a role in this sheer drop, it wasn’t a good idea from the get-go to clash the two racing series. NASCAR fans have grown frustrated with how FOX is favoring IndyCar over their big events. And this favouritism was very much evident in the pre-season commercials.

Set up for Success – Tom Brady in Commercials

After the twists and turns occurred after the Sunday broadcast, we know, Penske is the one who has faced a massive loss. The loss, we can say both financially and the efforts and energy he gave to IndyCar to make it a big thing. In that matter of fact, the heavy promotion they did for IndyCar, we can say, is one among the many examples of Penske’s master plan. After he bought IndyCar for $300 million, he’s been bringing in ‘big’ people as ambassadors to this.

Josef Newgarden headlined Fox Sports’ 2025 IndyCar promo with a cameo by Tom Brady, grabbing major attention. Released January 13, new content wows enthusiasts and professionals. This was followed by Alex Palou’s equally stunning commercial by FOX, whereas NASCAR’s biggest event Daytona 500 commercial was half-hearted attempt which wasn’t appreciated by the fans.

Even the NHRA racing community feels there’s just too much manufactured hype around IndyCar, thanks to their partnership with FOX. Apart from the flashy commercials, they even curated a new tagline: “Fastest Racing on Earth.” Well, Bob Tasca, NHRA Funny Car team owner, didn’t appreciate FOX’s antics and called them out, “I didn’t think FOX was the Fake News Network.”

After starting the season on a high, FOX’s new project with IndyCar had hit a major roadblock. Hopefully, they learn from this mistake and plan out their schedule that