Just one year into their new relationship, Fox and IndyCar are taking things to the next level.
Fox Corporation has purchased a one-third stake Penske Entertainment, the Roger Penske-owned unit that owns IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it was announced Thursday. According to Joe Flint of The Wall Street Journal, who was first to report the news, the investment is said to be valued at around $125-135 million.
As part of the deal, Fox and IndyCar have extended their media rights deal for multiple years. Fox is in the first year of an IndyCar deal that was struck last year, but terms were never publicly disclosed. Without knowing when the original deal was set to end or the length of the extension, it is impossible to know how long the partnership is now set to last.
Fox carries every IndyCar race on its broadcast network, a move that seems to have paid off in the ratings. Fox said this week that it is averaging 1.49 million viewers for IndyCar races this season, up 31 percent from the same point last year (1.13M). That includes an audience of more than seven million for this year’s Indy 500, the largest auto racing audience of the year — surpassing the Daytona 500 — and the highest for the 500 since 2008.
IndyCar CEO Mark Miles said last year that the company did not take “the deal which would have afforded us the greatest rights fee,” an indication that the company compromised on price in order to increase reach. The nine-figure investment would seem to outweigh any discussion of trading revenue for reach, especially given the relatively modest rights fee that IndyCar commanded in its previous deal ($20M/year).
If there was any question before, the investment would make it seemingly obvious that IndyCar is now Fox Sports’ most significant motorsports partner. While Fox pays a higher rights fee for NASCAR, it is now a part-owner of IndyCar and carries significantly more of those races.
