Like anybody with any clue about IndyCar and its current status within the motorsport community, we have heaped praise on Fox for their outstanding promotion of the series before and during their first season as the exclusive broadcast rights holder.
The three commercials featuring Josef Newgarden, Alex Palou, and Pato O'Ward during the Super Bowl were worth more than the annual value of the media rights deal itself, and Fox chose to air them to promote their new product.
Heck, Fox even keeps sending longtime beat reporter Bob Pockrass to IndyCar races, rather than NASCAR races, in an attempt to grow the series, because quite frankly, Pockrass' loyal following is currently bigger than IndyCar itself, outside of the Indy 500.
And while only five of the 14 NASCAR Cup Series races during Fox's portion of the schedule are actually on Fox, with the majority now on Fox Sports 1 as a part of NASCAR's media rights deal, Fox is responsible for the entire 17-race IndyCar calendar.
But Fox took a step back with their IndyCar promotion on Sunday during the NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, misleading fans on more than one occasion.
Fox misleads NASCAR fans (more than once)
Sunday's Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway was a bit of a bore, but even with that aside, the way Fox opted to "promote" IndyCar was misleading at best.
They aired a graphic, on multiple occasions, stating that the IndyCar race on the streets of Long Beach, California was "Today after NASCAR", conveniently without mentioning the actual start time (like they do for literally any other sport, including other IndyCar races).
"AFTER" NASCAR with no mention of the actual start time (15 minutes from now)? pic.twitter.com/9X7jQZB23n
— Beyond the Flag (@Beyond_The_Flag) April 13, 2025
The decision to exclude the time was obvious: because while the IndyCar race did indeed start (and end) after the NASCAR race, the majority of it was run during the Cup race, and more of it would have been run during the Cup race had the Cup race had more than one caution flag period for cause.
And Fox wouldn't dare risk sending fans away from the NASCAR broadcast.
The decision was not taken well by a number of fans, and the reaction was justified.
On one hand, Fox was clearly hiding the start time from those tuned into NASCAR, which, in hindsight, could have been perceived as a strategic move, given the fact that the race was a snoozefest and some fans may have rushed to their remotes at the sight.
On the other, how stupid do they think race fans are? First of all, we live in an era where many fans have a second (or third) screen, and secondly, could they not just look it up (if they didn't know already)?
FOX trying not to make the current NASCAR audience aware that they are cannibalizing viewers
— Jimmy Zajac (@SlimJimJZ) April 13, 2025
But this was a sheer embarrassment, done for no other reason than to fulfill a contract obligation. Fox had no intention of promoting this IndyCar race, and the fact that they ran the graphic on multiple occasions solidified the lazy-at-best approach.
One of the main reasons why Fox was willing to make IndyCar the only premier motorsport series in North America with all races broadcasting on network television is because of the fact that they know it needs the extra promotion to make it have success, both in and of itself and relative to other forms of motorsport, NASCAR included.
In other words, NASCAR fans are going to find the NASCAR race whether it's on Fox or Fox Sports 1, so putting all 14 of Fox's races on actual Fox is unnecessary. Even for as much as we hear about NASCAR's "decline", it is still the unchallenged most popular motorsport in America.
But on the flip side, as we've seen in the past, some IndyCar races on Fox Sports 1 have drawn smaller audiences than the actual on-site attendance at certain events.
Suffice it to say that IndyCar is already facing an uphill climb.
We keep hearing excuses about why the ratings from Long Beach were lower than they were from Thermal Club, and you can blame it all you want on the Masters, but the reality is that IndyCar is always going to be competing against another sporting event that mainstream sports fans will consider to be more "major" than IndyCar.
You can't simply avoid scheduling IndyCar races when there is another sporting event going on at the same time, yet we hear this every single time ratings are in the tank (even though they were actually significantly up, year-over-year).
So if you're Fox, why try to hide pertinent race information from an audience that, worst case, is just going to shift to another Fox network, or best case, could turn on a second Fox stream at the same time, thus boosting viewership for both racing properties?
A large contingent of fans certainly would have appreciated the honesty and transparency, at the very least, because Sunday's "promotion" of IndyCar was a bad look all-around.