FOX’s IndyCar ‘Favoritism’ After Major Blunders in 2024 Offends NASCAR Fans

The media broadcasting landscape within US motorsports is undergoing a major change in 2025. NASCAR bagged a massive $7.7 billion media rights deal that retained major partners FOX and NBC. But, with the arrival of Amazon Prime Video and Warner Brothers as streaming partners, and with 10 races shared between the two, FOX will have fewer races on their schedule.

This is where Roger Penske’s IndyCar saw an opportunity and parted ways with long-time partner NBC Sports. FOX Sports was on the lookout for a new venture and joined forces with IndyCar in an exclusive deal that will air all races on broadcast television. Making it the only motorsports series in America that will be available on cable TV.

FOX is going all out to serve their new partners; even Bob Pockrass changed his credentials on X, where he promoted their link-up with the open-wheel racing series. FOX Sports even launched a huge commercial starring Josef Newgarden, which will be aired during Fox’s NFL playoff broadcast.

NASCAR reporter Jeff Gluck caught on these signs, seeing FOX investing heavily with their new partners. “This ad is further evidence Fox is really, really going all out for its first year of IndyCar. This is a terrific attention-grabber and exposure.” Well, NASCAR fans were feeling left out and questioned why the network hasn’t been doing similar things for the premier stock car racing series.

Quickly the comments started to flood in with the instances of FOX’s blunder with their NASCAR broadcast. While a few others added that this will just be a one-season wonder before IndyCar fans suffer a similar fate.

NASCAR fans get salty over FOX’s exuberant plans for IndyCar

Although the NASCAR stars are finally getting in the limelight with Netflix’s documentary, FOX hasn’t made efforts to promote the drivers. Imagine a similar commercial that featured the likes of Kyle Larson or multi-series champions. This is exactly what this race fan felt about the Josef Newgarden commercial. “Well, that was awesome. Imagine if they made that effort to produce a commercial for Larson, Blaney, Reddick, or Logano 🤷🏻‍♂️”

There had been multiple incidents with FOX’s race coverage where most of the time they would be under a commercial. All the major wrecks, accidents, and moments weren’t delivered to the fans watching live. Rather, they had to rely on tweets from Bob Pockrass. Even Dale Jr. was fed up with what he saw during the Cup race in COTA. “These camera shots are too tight. Can’t see everything. There is sh-t ton going out there.” Meanwhile, seeing them go all out with their IndyCar hype plan has got fans feeling sidelined and ignored. “Wish FOX would give NASCAR the same treatment. Advertising feels stale and almost non existent, especially with the 500 coming up soon.”

Some even pointed out this honeymoon period won’t last very long. Just like FOX has degraded its coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series, something similar will follow at the IndyCar level after these first few seasons. “It’s the same formula for every network: Get a new shiny thing. Put effort into thing. Fans get excited about network’s effort. Years later, network seems to put in less effort. Fans complain about quality. Thing moves to new network. Rinse and repeat.”

Jimmy Spencer and Adam Alexander used to keep NASCAR fans up to date with FOX’s special offering, the Race Hub. With over 2,500 episodes across 15 seasons, it had been a mainstay for the NASCAR community, but the operations of this classic show were shut down by the media company last year. But did this decision have anything to do with FOX moving their base to IndyCar? This fan certainly believes in that theory: “I thought that’s why they stopped Race Hub was because of getting IndyCar. Wonder if they will do any kind of IndyCar show.”

FOX perhaps took the message of reaching out to younger fans and viewers ahead of the 2024 season. They rolled out posters of the drivers with a comic book look, which became meme material and were trolled by the fans. Taking shots at FOX Sports again, this race fan reminded us of how they’ve been treating NASCAR. “Hopefully @nascar will get another year of cartoon superhero graphics. 😬🤞”

What are your thoughts on FOX’s Sports heavily investing in their IndyCar coverage? And can we expect something similar for NASCAR for the 2025 season?