IndyCar: Hy-Vee tries to boost IndyCar’s weak ticket sales

This year marked the highest turnout in IndyCar’s nearly two-decades of racing in Iowa. But it would be a ghost town if not for the concerts brought in by Hy-Vee.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

The event already failed as a race, but the concerts have helped to bring the race back and make the grandstands look reasonably full, all thanks to Hy-Vee who put a lot of money and effort into making the weekend a success.

Hat’s off to them.

Plenty of open seats during the IndyCar race at Iowa this past weekend. Nowhere near a sellout. In contrast, the Hungarian GP F1 this past weekend drew 303,000 for the weekend and over 100,000 on race day.

Organizers did not announce official attendance, but ticket sales were up, said Merrill Cain, IndyCar’s communications director. There were still a fair amount of empty seats during the race and the concerts.

Kirk Ferentz - gives the command to start engines for the Hy-Vee One Step 250 Presented by Gatorade - By_ Chris Jones. The massive empty seats do not lie. More People came later to see the concerts. — Kirk Ferentz – gives the command to start engines for the Hy-Vee One Step 250 Presented by Gatorade – By_ Chris Jones. The massive empty seats do not lie. More People came later to see the concerts. They couldn’t care less about the races.

“This is not a race weekend, it’s an event weekend,” said Bud Denker, president of the Penske Corporation. Racing takes a 2nd fiddle to music.

From free pit lane access for families on Friday to Carrie Underwood taking the stage on Saturday, the perks are necessary to keep the racing series relevant in an era of F1 dominance.

Copying F1’s Drive to Survive, The CW- and Vice-produced “100 Days to Indy” — a television series that peeks into drivers’ lives from the start of the race calendar to the Indianapolis 500 — got 180,000 to 250,000 viewers per episode.

CW	100 Days to Indy	Episode	Total Viewers	18-49 Viewers	Ratio 18-49 Viewers/Total Viewers
		Episode 1	189,000	30,000	16%
		Episode 2	210,000	50,000	24%
		Episode 3	226,000	40,000	18%
		Episode 4	142,000	20,000	14%
		Episode 5	220,000	50,000	23%
		Episode 6	226,000	30,000	13%
		Episode 7	185,000	50,000	27%
		Average	199,714	38,571	19%

That number pales in comparison to “Drive to Survive’s” 6.8 million and counting views, as reported by a YouGov Sports Media Landscape study early this year.

Despite IndyCar claiming that F1 is more predictable and one team or driver dominates, the fact that F1 draws 70 to 75 million TV viewers per race worldwide, and IndyCar is lucky to get 1 million, tells the real story.

Yes, the racing is great in IndyCar because it is a spec racing series, so naturally, with all the cars being almost identical, who wins is a total crap shoot.

IndyCar fans love that, but the only problem is – there is not enough of them.

The last race was in Toronto, streamed only on Peacock. The viewership was so low, IndyCar and NBC/Peacock refuse to report them. This number, whatever it is, would represent the hardcore IndyCar fanbase.

We may never know how small the number is until IndyCar or NBC/Peacock tell the world how many people streamed the Toronto IndyCar race.