How does IndyCar make itself relevant outside of the Indianapolis 500?

Attending the Indianapolis 500 is one of the most mind-boggling experiences a motorsport fan can have. Hundreds of thousands of spectators pack into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, desperate to cheer on the next winner in an event that has run for over 100 years.

Head to any other IndyCar race, though, and things will look much different. Many of the rabid fans of the Indy 500 are exclusively fans of that single race, and in 2024, it became clear that the series hasn’t done enough to bring relevance to the rest of it championship. But how is it supposed to do so?

IndyCar suffers from a lack of non-500 promotion

In 2024, the Indianapolis 500 received exceptional television ratings. More viewers tuned into the race than in 2023 despite the fact that the 500-mile race was rain delayed by four hours, and the hype going into the event was immense.

Where is that hype for the rest of the IndyCar season?

IndyCar faces a unique issue when compared to every other race series in the world: One of its races is greater than the sum of its entire championship. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was developed back in the early 1900s, and starting in the 1910s, its annual 500-mile event became known as the most impressive event in motorsport history.

But while the Indy 500 has remained, the series that have raced at the event have changed over time. American open-wheel racing has been fractured and contentious almost from Day 1, and the 500 itself has been at the center of almost every single one of those spats as different sanctioning bodies vie for control of racing’s most coveted event.

However, one of the big things that made open-wheel sanctioning so contentious in America came down to the fact that almost everyone in the sport had differing ideas of how the Indy 500 should be promoted, and how it should tie into the rest of the season. Where CART argued that every race should have a decent prize purse and ample promotion, the IRL preferred to keep itself centered around Indianapolis.

Unfortunately, modern IndyCar seems to be falling into that IRL trap.

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Fans watching the NBC broadcast of the 2024 Indy 500 noted a distinct lack of promotion for the IndyCar Series as a whole, including the Detroit Grand Prix that was set to take place the weekend after the 500. It isn’t as if there wasn’t ample time to promote the rest of the series, considering the four-hour rain delay.

At the track itself, you would have been hard-pressed to find any indication that IndyCar features a monthslong racing season, that the sum total of its importance exists solely within the Month of May. Plenty of fans in the grandstands would consider themselves 500-only fans — folks who make a point of traveling to IMS each year, but who don’t bother with any of the other races.

And if you were to turn on your TV beforehand, you might be greeted with The CW’s “100 Days to Indy” television show — which profiles the start of the season, then ends with the Indy 500.

It’s mind-boggling. What would Formula 1 look like if the sum total of its yearly importance was encompassed by the Monaco Grand Prix? How would NASCAR expect to grow its fanbase if the Daytona 500 was the only race that “mattered” to the Cup Series? Why hasn’t IndyCar been able to flourish beyond its Memorial Day classic?

Put simply, it seems as if series management just doesn’t care.

Many fans had high hopes when Penske Entertainment took over both the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IndyCar Series. After all, Roger Penske himself was critical to the formation of CART, the series that opposed the idea that the 500 was the only important race of the year. Surely if anyone could pull other IndyCar events up to the level of the 500, it would be Penske.

Sadly, that hasn’t happened; though Penske Entertainment has brought sweeping and important upgrades to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway itself, there have been few improvements to the series itself.

It wouldn’t be challenging to use the Indy 500 as a springboard for the growth of the series. It seems like such a massive oversight that fans attending the 500 can’t explore the rest of the offerings from the IndyCar calendar.

At Circuit of The Americas, for example, the infield at the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix is littered with booths promoting many of the towns around Austin, Texas: New Braunfels, San Antonio, San Marcos. Fans can explore these booths, learn more about these places, and even get discounts on any trips to those towns that they book right there at the track. F1 itself likely doesn’t need help promoting itself among the crowd of interested attendees, but the USGP has become a great place for Texas to promote itself.

A similar set-up could be implemented at IMS; after all, the infield at the track is already loaded up with sponsor activation booths that encourage fans to sign up for email lists in exchange for free products or discounts. It would be simple to have a “midway” almost wholly dedicated to the tracks composing the rest of the IndyCar calendar, where representatives could offer more information about their venues, and where fans could purchase tickets — perhaps with an Indy 500 discount attached.

Why not partner with local tourism companies, who can organize ticket packages for events that also encompasses some of the big landmarks nearby? Fans may be more convinced to head to Gateway if a savvy agent could sell them on a nice weekend in St. Louis, too.

On network broadcasts for the Indy 500, there’s plenty of time within the extended pre-race buildup to profile key moments in the IndyCar season so far, and how those battles could play out on track. There’s time to delve into upcoming races, to highlight uniquely exciting events, to remind fans that if they enjoyed the action, they can find it week after week until September.

And these are only some initial ideas; fans of other forms of sport could likely come up with so many more that might feel new to racing but are common to, say, American football — which recently adopted a “helmets off” marketing strategy to engage fans in deeper, more meaningful ways.

As fans, it can be so easy to get lost in the magic of the dazzling Indy 500, because it truly is a spectacle unlike any other, but IndyCar itself should be more than capable of thinking beyond the confines of one race. It should be able to grow, and it should be able to weave the Indianapolis 500 into the tapestry of a whole season.