Penske keen for more Sunday night IndyCar races

IndyCar’s first appearance as a prime time Sunday night sports property for FOX has led the series to seek more opportunities to showcase its cars, drivers, and racing in the unique end-of-weekend broadcast window.

The TV rating for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway wasn’t as spectacular as hoped, but the average viewership of 1,012,000 kept the series above the one-million mark for its third consecutive race.

According to Penske Corporation president Bud Denker, it’s an experiment worth trying again.

“We're delighted to have over a million viewers again,” Denker told RACER. “I think it's the first time in a long time to get that number after the Indy 500 at multiple races. So it's a really, really good trend for us. As I said to folks at FOX afterwards, if you couldn't get excited about that race, you don’t have a pulse.

“The recipe is here: For the first time ever, we've done a Sunday night race on network. So I hope FOX feels the same way I do, and looks to do more next year with our ovals.”

Denker’s fond of the late Sunday timing for another reason as it prevents IndyCar from going head-to-head with bigger events that are more likely to draw greater interest and reduce its tune-in audience.

“The whole purpose was to avoid NASCAR,” he said of the Sunday afternoon Cup race in Mexico. “It’s a repeatable formula to avoid NASCAR, avoid Formula 1, unlike what we had with The Masters (at Long Beach, which had the smallest TV rating of the season). So some of the goal of next year, as we schedule events, is to certainly avoid those conflicts.”

Metrics from the event provided to IndyCar by Nielsen and across the eight races completed also left Denker and the rest of the series’ executive team feeling encouraged with the ongoing efforts to reach new and younger fans.

“The other thing that was so terrific was the 18- to 34-year-old trend we’re seeing,” Denker said. “We’re up 56 percent now for the season in the 18- to 34-year-old category. So that's mega for us with new viewership.”