Fans blamed IndyCar for waiting on the FIFA World Cup final before starting the Music City Grand Prix. According to IndyCar president Doug Boles, the opposite was true.
The original plan was always to use the World Cup final as a lead-in to attract new viewers. But once weather delayed the start of Sunday's race, FOX adjusted its coverage to avoid sending millions of viewers to a rain-soaked track.
"FOX has been an amazing partner to IndyCar," Boles said during an appearance on Gluckcast Live with Jeff Gluck. "They're helping us figure out how to grow and one of the most important things to get new eyeballs on us is to put our sport on the front end or the back end of new eyeballs."
The race was originally scheduled to begin roughly 20 minutes after the World Cup final ended. Instead, repeated lightning delays prevented the green flag from waving as planned.
"We actually had a lightning delay that happened before the game actually ended," Boles said. "Once the game ended, the plan was 20 minutes after the end of the game they were going to come to IndyCar. But we had a lightning delay and then we had another lightning delay."
Rather than immediately cut to a rain delay, Boles said FOX chose to remain with its World Cup coverage until racing could begin.
"FOX came back to us and said, 'Hey, we're gonna stay on World Cup as long as we can stay on World Cup until we can come back to racing,'" Boles said. "They wanted to come back to what our sport is."
That decision led some fans to believe IndyCar delayed the event to accommodate the World Cup.
"A lot of people gave us grief and said, 'You waited on World Cup,'" Boles said. "No, World Cup was waiting on us."
Despite Sunday's postponement, Boles said the strategy still exposed IndyCar to a larger audience. The weather-delayed Sunday broadcast averaged 2.9 million viewers before the race was postponed to Monday, while Monday's broadcast drew 775,000 viewers.
Jessica Garcete is an IndyStar sports reporter. Get IndyStar's motor sports coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Motor Sports newsletter. Subscribe to theYouTube channel IndyStar TV: IndyCar for a behind-the-scenes look at IndyCar and expert analysis.
Source: The Indianapolis Star
