Highlights from Pruett interview with IndyCar CEO Mark Miles

Mark Miles

Marshall Pruett's most recent podcast for Racer Magazine included an interview with IndyCar CEO Mark Miles. We summarize the highlights for you:

New title sponsor: Making great progress, not sure when it will be announced. Will be a terrific successor to Verizon and should be announced by the first open test at COTA in February. It is a high quality company that cares about racing.

International TV Broadcasts: Decided to take it in house instead of outsourcing with ESPN International again. Miles has been doing a lot of traveling internationally to talk to broadcasters to gauge their interest in broadcasting IndyCar races. Met with 20 European broadcasters in Monaco, also went to Mexico and other countries.

Gaming: Working on new eSports racing game but nothing to announce for at least 6 months. Currently IndyCar has 4 licensing deals for games, but none of them are official IndyCar games as they mix in other forms of racing.

Car Changes: No big change to aesthetics and aero for next few years, except for the introduction of the windscreen.

Silver Bullet: Miles says there is no silver bullet to improve IndyCar – it's a bunch of things – TV, Car, marketing, driver availability, venues, etc. – it all has to work together

Indy 500 Broadcast: NBC is great at making big events bigger by getting their other platforms under the Comcast umbrella to market the event and add content

NBC Gold: will be an online subscription service direct to consumer – will be everything IndyCar – all practice sessions, qualifying, races, behind the scenes, T&S, etc.. He believes hard core fans will think its a fair price.

Third engine manufacturers: He says you cannot assign deadlines to it. Lead times are significant. Jay Frye is on point for manufacturer engagement. IndyCars will be faster and louder starting in 2021 and he thinks that will be attractive to manufacturers. Note to Mark Miles: Get the TV ratings up and they will come

Improving catch fence safety: He did not have much to say about this topic as safety reports up to Jay Frye – he would be best to address, but he says he is not aware of any big announcement coming.

Returns to Surfers: – Gold Coast premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is very keen on bringing IndyCar racing back to Surfers. Since coming back from Australia to meet with her he has had half a dozen calls to work on more details. Goal is to have deal done by February 2019 for a race in 2020. Note from AR1 editor: At the end of the day it comes down to money – can they find a race sponsor to help foot the bill? If NASCAR can land one before IndyCar they might be racing with the Supercars at Surfers instead of IndyCar. We know the Supercars series has endorsed a NASCAR race there, not IndyCar. Roger Penske is heavily involved with NASCAR and Supercars and it's his NASCAR car that he brought over for a demo run. Miles had better hope Penske is not working against him or he will lose.

Ovals Hurting: Said IndyCar has reduced sanction fees for the oval races to help the race promoters from taking a blood bath due to low ticket sales. What he does not address is how to make the oval races more attractive to fans so they will come. Concerts and less track downtime during the weekend would help

Cleveland: No talks about bringing back Cleveland race on the schedule, but he does recognize great history there and is not opposed to it.