With the Verizon IndyCar Series season just over a month away, excitement is picking up with what is to come. That excitement stems all the way up to the executives and their thoughts entering the season.
Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman & Company, expressed his excitement by reflecting back on last year, saying that it was a “fantastic year” with viewership going up by 25%.
“You can study other sports, other motorsports, and that is not something we take for granted,” Miles commented. “That is not something that is an Act of God or natural law. A 25% lift is a quality, meaningful increase for us. Took our average audience over a million people for the first time in a while. So that’s important.
“The metrics on social media were actually a little higher. Again, we started from a pretty low base. But I think we showed we could move the needle, and fan engagement through digital and social media was much, much improved.
“We signed a number of sponsors, principal among them obviously was Verizon. That wasn’t so long ago. They made a terrific impact for the Verizon IndyCar Series, for all our stakeholders, our fans, and will continue to invest. I think they’re a perfect fit. But there were others as well, including TAG Heuer. Angie’s List is how the title of the Grand Prix.”
Miles feels that their TV numbers can only continue to increase moving forward, too, with agreements in place with their partners for “a number of additional years”. He added that they’ve had conversations with their partners about things that they can within their agreements to “make meaningful additional increases in the audience”.
“So more continuity like I think we achieved with ABC in May would be a good thing,” he commented. “It isn’t helpful to a national following of fans to be on one broadcaster one week, two weeks later, another. It’s very hard for our television partners to promote the next race if the next race isn’t theirs. So working towards additional continuity would be important. I think we can make some improvements in that regard.
“Harder, but something that is worth discussing from our perspective is whether or not it’s possible to change the current exclusivities, where ABC has broadcast exclusivity, and NBC Sports Network was cable exclusivity. If each could have both, you could imagine ESPN, for example, possibly being a player for us, and you can imagine NBC as opposed to just NBC Sports Network taking some races.
“That is harder. That is not consistent with our current agreements. There are ideas like that that at some level are being discussed for a next set of improvements.”
Beyond looking at the television package heading into the new year, that excitement continues to build, beginning with the schedule. Miles says that their objective is to have 20 races a season, which they sit at 16 races currently. The season currently begins at the end of February with the streets of St. Petersburg, before finishing with Sonoma Raceway at the end of August. Moving towards 2016, though, Miles is hopeful to have the season start the weekend after the Super Bowl in February, and go all the way till Labor Day in September.
“So, yes, we started by ending earlier. You haven’t yet seen us start earlier. But I want you to understand that’s where we’re going,” Miles expressed. “We want to race in a very full schedule, about 20 races, from the weekend after the Super Bowl in early February through Labor Day. That will feel very different than it did last year and this year. You will see the expansion.
“Related to that, there’s the question of international races. We said we think there’s an important market opportunity for us on a limited basis at the very beginning of the championship. The strategy about when we schedule ourselves beginning of February through Labor Day is not dependent upon international races.  We could fill that early part of the series, February, with additional North American races. But, one, there aren’t too many places where we can race climate-wise. Two, we’re determined to find really vibrant new race opportunities. So we’re going to be discerning about that.”
Miles added that they keep reminding themselves that they’re not Formula One, so you’re not going to see them going around the glove each week, but rather focus on a “limited number of international races at the beginning of the calendar in February, then get to the States, North America, stay in North America”.
Though in adding events, INDYCAR knows that they have to be careful to not run into cancellations – as with this year and Brazil. The season was supposed to open at Brazil next weekend, but that event was cancelled. Miles commented that the cancellation “had to do with the changing of elections, politics between a national and regional federal district of Brasilia governments”, but adds that INDYCAR did not lose anything financially due to the cancellation. Miles added that he wouldn’t be surprised if the country isn’t having second thoughts due to the economical loss.
“The sponsorships were at or above where they wanted them to be with a title and a major presenter. All the hospitality was sold. You couldn’t buy another box or suite. Ticket sales were very strong,” Miles commented. “All I’m trying to say is I think the uptake among fans in Brazil was very meaningful. It was going to be at lease a 30,000 person, in terms of attendance, and it might have been 45,000 or 50,000, and economically it was going to be a success.”
One of the markets that fans would be hopeful of seeing return is the streets of Baltimore, which Miles agrees as he feels everybody enjoyed the event.
“In dealing with Baltimore, again I want to emphasize, they invested, did a great job,” Miles added. “As many of you know they were racing around a Major League Baseball park, NFL. They weren’t sure they wouldn’t have to move their date for IndyCar on those years when Major League Baseball or NFL football had to be played in one of those stadiums. We needed a partner for the Labor Day weekend that could give us data equity. We want that continuity from year to year.”
If the schedule asn’t enough to kick off excitement, everybody has been focused on the new aero kits that both manufactures have been open to developing for their respective drivers. Chevrolet unveiled theirs earlier this month, with Honda’s to be unveiled mid-March.
“Obviously the rules are going to change drastically with the aero kit. We’re opening up the formula, so there are going to be a lot of rules associated with that which we’ve not had to deal with in the past,” Derrick Walker, President of Operations and Competition for INDYCAR, commented. “When you look at our Competition Committee, we have a series of stewards that judge the on track activity and the technical group that are going to look at the aero kit regulations and everybody staying onboard with the rules as they’re written.”
