IndyCar’s next TV deal
09/30/16 
A reader writes, Dear AR1.com, I have been an avid reader for over 10 years now and my father used to work in TV, so I read with great interest Mark Cipolloni's recent article titled Is IndyCar preparing for another money-grab. Having talked TV with my dad since I was a kid, let me give you my perspective on the situation.
The reality is that no matter what happens, no new TV package will include 100% of the races on broadcast network television. Could it happen? Yes, but it would cost IndyCar a lot of money to buy their way on to the broadcast lineup. It will likely always be a mix of broadcast and cable. Even NASCAR doesn't appear strictly on broadcast TV. The NCAA Final Four moved to cable.
It's important to point out that the entertainment world has changed. The rules from even ten years ago no longer apply. Audiences are more fractionalized than ever. When my dad was a weekend anchor at the Denver CBS affiliate Sunday night was their biggest audience of the week. They would regularly pull a 15 to 20 rating (with great lead in programming). He was embarrassed if they got below a 10 rating.
Today, that same newscast is thankful to get a 2.0. It's not just the proliferation of cable channels but the explosion of streaming, gaming and every other distraction. Every form of media is struggling to get attention. Somehow football keeps riding the wave, but look at the other sports. Baseball is seeing big declines and my dad refers to it as a "regional sport". The NBA is down.
Frankly, even if there had never been a split and IndyCar had been riding a successful wave for the past 20 years, it's viewership would still be a fraction of its peak.
At the end of the day, everything is about business. IndyCar needs to create a package that helps the overall bottom line and the TV partners will do the same. I think it's safe to say the current IndyCar management would not have negotiated the old contract. The problem is that when they negotiate the next one they'll be talking to TV networks that are looking at the future of viewership understanding that it won't be anything like the past. Dan in Denver
Dear Dan, Thanks for writing and you make some excellent points. As for NASCAR not being 100% on network TV, I think that is because they have so many races, far more than IndyCar.
I disagree with you that if IndyCar were to buy network time and put all the races ABC doesn't normally want on network TV it would cost them a lot of money. Perhaps I should have spelled this out better in the article, so I will attempt to do that here.
Will it cost them some money? Yes. Will it cost them a lot of money? I don't think so. The following is based on the fact that because 100% of IndyCar races will be on network TV, 100% of the races will get over 1 million viewers and the average will be closer to 2 million per event.
Hence the time-buy costs will be offset by the following:
1. Revenue from commercial time slots IndyCar sells – will be higher than what NBCSN can get with it's pathetic 0.5 ratings
2. Larger contract fees from the series sponsor due to higher TV ratings – Companies will fight over that deal.
3. Larger contract with any series associate sponsors due to higher TV ratings
4. Better chance a third engine manufacturer will enter the series – they pay a fee to IndyCar to participate.
5. The series will be exposed to a much greater audience, taking it from being invisible today to where people on the street might know what an IndyCar is – value? Priceless
6. Drivers personal sponsorship deal will increase in value. Better drivers will be attracted to the series.
7. More money for track signage at each event due to the higher TV ratings
I could go on. The fact is that a time-buy deal on, say ABC, for all the races ABC itself does not normally take, will not be as costly as one might think. In fact it will eventually turn a profit for IndyCar as people witness the best racing in motorsports and the series grows in stature as a result of new fans coming aboard.
Maybe I'm biased, but I think that even ABC's cable affiliate ESPN would deliver a much larger cable audience than NBCSN (I think even ESPN 2 would do better). Since NASCAR switched from ESPN to NBCSN they have seen a double digit decline in viewership.
And then there are the intangibles. During last year's Indy 500, ESPN brought Sportscenter out for race weekend. That's additional publicity that can't be quantified but has to be considered a bonus. (Unfortunately, it didn't relate to a growth in race ratings… although maybe it helped keep it steady). It would make sense that Sportscenter would talk more about IndyCar if the entire series lived on ABC or a combo of ABC/ESPN. I also have to wonder if ABC's relationship with IndyCar plays a role in having Hinch on Dancing With the Stars (and Helio before him).
One more thing, Rich Feinberg now works at IMS. He used to be at ESPN. I think he could bring some new wrinkles into the negotiations with some innovative thinking.
Again, thanks for reading Dan. Mark C. for AR1.com