IndyCar encouraged by increase in younger fans

The IndyCar Series is undergoing an important revolution that could transform its future.

Armed with incredibly loyal fans, the series has been an outlier among other major sports in the U.S. as a result of having the oldest demographic –t he majority of IndyCar fans have been at least 55 – and that’s trending downward in a positive way.

IndyCar’s veteran fans are still there, the same ones who’ve followed the series for decades, but the ongoing efforts by the series to bring its drivers forward to younger audiences through widespread social media engagements, and the commitment by FOX Sports to share the series to untapped viewership groups, has been a meaningful success.

Without backfilling the older fans with new, the series has been at risk of losing its core followers in the coming decades, but recent broadcast data says an age-based shift is under way.

On the ground, the visual evidence, with waves of younger-generation fans throughout the vast Indianapolis Motor Speedway property, has also been a welcome sight.

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The series first spoke of the encouraging developments to start the month at the Barber Motorsports Park race, and after the last race on May 10 – the Sonsio Grand Prix run on the Indianapolis road course – the independent data delivered by Nielsen using linear television and digital consumption tracking confirms the progress.

So far in 2025, through the May 10 race won by Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing, IndyCar has registered a 66-percent growth in adults from the age of 18-34. The fastest growing demographic for IndyCar across all broadcast metrics this year is found among women aged 18-34, which is up 89 percent.

“We’re seeing a notable and pretty positive audience shift so far this year,” Penske Entertainment Chief Marketing Officer Alex Damron told RACER. “It’s very clear more young people are watching our races. Digitally, we’ve seen more engagement for quite some time, but it’s especially encouraging to see our millennial and Gen Z fan base begin to tune-in with higher frequency.

“We’ve been very purposeful in trying to carve out more space in the fan journey that is especially friendly to younger audiences. It’s a group that creates social experiences through sports and wants a lot of touchpoints, everything from merchandise, to shoulder programming, fantasy games, heavy digital engagement and more.”