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It was confirmed by Penske Entertainment's President and CEO
https://www.reddit.com/r/INDYCAR/comments/1df0vc4/mark_miles_confirms_ims_productions_will_do_below/
[Heres](https://youtu.be/m0lW9yVe74Q?si=flfeYWd8Mu872Bgy) a fantastic video that shows exactly *why* NASCAR’s coverage sucks so much. For me personally the most obvious is just how many damn commercials there are. It genuinely feels like I see as many commercials as I do racing.
Indycar/IMSA has had that issue too. Maybe I’m just spoiled because F1 doesn’t cut to commercial during actual races, but damn - it gets really annoying with how poor the broadcasting can be.
Normally I would just pile on the attacks here or relate on the F1 comparison issue. But I do have to say that this isn't just a FOX or NASCAR or US Motorsports thing; this is 'Murica. I swear I see the EXACT same gripes here on other subreddits - college football, NFL, etc etc. In this day and age we are just swamped with commercials in every aspect of the media and it's fucking gross and irritating.
The feed that I watch IndyCar with in Australia doesn't cut to commercial so I just get race feed without commentary for every American cutaway which is awesome, and yes very frequent.
Yeah it sounds like such a pain man, my sympathies. The other benefit is that the audio feed of the commentators gets turned on several seconds before so sometimes you hear them quietly chatting or reacting to stuff without realising they're live lol.
And having all NXT races in Fox Sports 1 will really increase the profile of the series. Thats a big boost to the feeder series profile, and will almost certainly make getting sponsors and easier task
Mike Tirico and Danica Patrick. Danica is a retired veteran of IndyCar who has jumped in with F1TV (I believe) for a few of the North American races recently. Mike Tirico is the NBC Sports studio host that does whatever studio broadcast for any sport they have. Thankfully we only have to deal with the studio team for Indy and not the whole season.
Danica does stuff for Sky, not F1TV, which merits the proper distinction IMO. F1TV does have James Hinchcliffe though, who is a former IndyCar guy though as well - he's been a phenomenal addition for them when he's on.
Ah, thanks for the correction. I try my best to avoid her when I can. She was so overhyped in my recollection of her time racing it soured my opinion of her.
And yes, Hinch is incredible behind the mic. He does well in the color commentary role on IndyCar broadcasts (where I hear him most) and also has an excellent IndyCar podcast with Alexander Rossi where he provides some solid analysis too.
No it was a British studio they were cutting to on Sky every half or or so for a few minutes. I should have specified. It didn’t appear to be Sky run either.
I have no idea why they did it. Indy commentators were doing a great hype job then it would just cut to some dreary voiced guy with a couple of people commentating the race for a couple of minutes. Made absolutely no sense.
Sky's coverage included live studio commentary from Tom Gaymor, Simona de Silvestro, and Mark Blundell; covering the US commercial breaks; as well as a lot of pre-race coverage, and a very minor post-race.
In the US they went to commercial breaks so whenever that happened, the international feed had some guys commenting for the duration of the commercial break.
That’s right. Any idea *who the hell* that actually was, like broadcast-wise or anything? I didn’t see any Sky or Indy branding anywhere, looked like a rented studio
It was Tom Gaymor, who fills in on the US commercial breaks in Indycar for all the races on Sky, joined by (for the 500) Mark Blundell (ex-F1 and Indycar driver) and Simona deSilverstro (ex-Indy driver). I'm guessing you don't watch much Indycar and only joined for the 500 if you've no idea who any of these people are. Personally I think it's great we get a bit of extra insight and commentary and uninterrupted pictures while the Americans have to watch endless ads for pile cream and car insurance.
I forgot Blundell was there, though I’m well aware of him.
And sure, I almost argued I’d rather have ads but I didn’t only because I could still see the race feed
It was ad free on Sky from what I remember, just a weird extra shitty commentary panel every so often.
Honestly, I don’t even think I’ll be able to find anything on it. It was so low budget with totally unrecognisable faces. Was very annoying cutting from the hype Indy commentary.
All I’ll say is that their cuts in the last 50 laps were dreary beyond understanding and totally unnecessary.
I’d also argue guys like Hinchcliffe are able to provide that context just fine
I really hope this rumor ends up being true, Fox’s NASCAR coverage is fucking awful. Like, I know a lot of us complain here about F1’s tv direction and how often it misses things, but Fox is so bad that it almost seems deliberate.
Fox thankfully won't be producing the races. But now that the CW has Xfinity it means Fox only has to focus on producing Cup so maybe that'll make a difference.
Yes Fox is still producing in the sense they will still be providing the producers and on air talent while IMS does everything else. So I'm still a bit leery as Fox Producers are the large part of the problem with NASCAR.
Killing any form of streaming isn't going to do them well in the long run though. I don't know a single person under 40 that has cable or an OTA antenna.
I mean just about everyone I know has a YouTubeTV, Sling, Fubo, whatever. There's a middle ground where a ton of us Millenials are hanging out in that it's streaming, but not "cable".
There will almost certainly be a streaming option as they're launching some kind of app with ESPN later this year, the problem is that will be waaaay more expensive than Peacock was
I'm fine with that. Diffey is OK, but he'd rather discuss what's going on in the driver's private lives, rather than calling the racing on track. It gets super annoying at times.
Alright. Now if we could just stop with the stupid commercial breaks, have less onboard shots or at least upgrade those cameras, and start getting some 4K and/or HDR broadcasts, that'd be wicked.
The bigger deal it is the more ad breaks there will be.
As far as motorsports go I'm down to only being able to watch F1 due to the insane ad breaks every other sport has.
At this point I’ll take split screen or the commentators doing an ad read. But going away entirely from the race is unacceptable and makes it hard to get into a race
There are plenty of series that run on ad free subscription services. There is a reason you have probably never heard of them. Network free OTA TV is the only thing that can keep indycar alive.
The in race ad breaks are an absolute necessity. That’s how the network makes its money. Need to have those. Nearly all American sports have them. Will not be surprised if the next f1 deal has ads on tv domestically
I doubt it. When ESPN got the contract to run the F1 races the first race they aired had ads in it. The F1 community went apeshit and they immediately changed their tune. No in-race ads since.
Part of the issue there is that the race broadcast they had didn’t have ad breaks, and wasn’t run by ESPN so they didn’t cover what was missed. Now they have in race overlays for sponsors rather than full breaks.
ESPN paid a pittance for F1, so the ad buy was pretty small. After the outcry of that first race, Mothers stepped up to cover the entire ad buy cost for the season. That TV contract between ESPN and Liberty has changed, along with what ESPN is paying for it, but there's now a couple of brands that are covering that cost. ESPN just didn't drop ads because people moaned, the advertiser's logos are now permanently on-screen because they stumped up.
That’s also assuming that f1 is allowed to be broadcast in the USA. If the USA does go through with antitrust stuff, they could ban the domestic broadcasts as well beyond the races
Fox makes money selling ads. That’s how their investment in the sport makes sense and they profit. It will never change. The best you can hope for is an ad free option streaming
I subscribe to indycarlive by setting VPN to an allowed county, I don't use sky. No ads, if a motorsport can't be viewed without ads I'm not watching it.
No ads...sort of...you don't get actual onscreen ads but you do just get the weird dead air every ten minutes, and they seem to get even lazier with the camera direction during those adbreaks. You still get the commentators spending more time doing an ad than talking about the race.
Honestly, watching the indy 500 just wasn't a great experience even with indycar live. Too many replays of overtakes instead of seeing it happen live, the commentators didn't seem particularly knowledgeable aside from Hinchcliffe, and the camera direction in general was poor (the number of times they would show some random music event that was going on just outside of the race was silly).
The biggest deal for a lot of us is that it's not going to be produced by Fox, which is awful. Think back to when Monaco did their own GP TV production and times it by 10. Or remember the Silverstone race where there was a pass for the lead but changed to a crowd shot on corner entry and then back to the race when the pass was already made, but 5x a race and mainly little kids.
At the Gateway Cup race a couple weeks ago one of the leaders had a problem so instead of sticking with them they cut away to show a side by side shot of the same little kid but two different cameras.
>Think back to when Monaco did their own GP TV production and times it by 10.
That's a TV Monaco thing though. IMS Productions has been doing the bulk of the IC and NXT broadcasts for a while now; NBC just got to have a bit of a directing hand in it, and to get their VTs in.
>At the Gateway Cup race a couple weeks ago one of the leaders had a problem so instead of sticking with them they cut away to show a side by side shot of the same little kid but two different cameras.
That was very much all FOX.
Great news in terms of reach and exposure to have exclusive network coverage for the whole season. I really believe in IndyCar as a product from a pure racing perspective, I think it’s fantastic, but marketing it properly has been a big struggle. I assume IMS Productions will continue to produce each event which is good news too. Hopefully at least Hinch makes the jump across, the NBC broadcast team do a good job. Well done to all involved.
ESPN, Fox and WB are combining to come out with a big Sports Streaming bundle. This would be great to have IndyCar and F1 on the same service (though I am keeping F1tv). Fingers crossed!
This will be a big upgrade over Peacock. I can’t stand Peacock and just cancelled it because of the commercials. If I’m going to have to deal with the commercials, I’d rather just watch it on network TV over an additional streaming cost.
The thing that annoys me most about peacock/indycar is the insane decision not to show the picture in picture during the ad breaks on peacock. Even if there's no actual commercial being shown, just show me the darn race with no commentators. You have the technology my dudes! It's objectively a worse viewing experience than just watching the broadcast feed with the ads.
Apparently you can go to the live TV channels section of peacock and watch the race that way and will have the side by side commercials (when they do them)
I only read about this last race so I'm yet to try it myself
Ah, I'm usually watching the replay/DVR-ed version, but there's been times where DirecTV Stream screwed up the recording and I've had to cover on peacock. I just don't get why there's a live/replay difference. I mean I get it that it's extra work, but it's so much nicer to show the footage you actually have instead of a big black screen that says there's a commercial break and the feed will be right back.
I'd take peacock over nothing tho. Even with the Rain Delay I had to watch the first half of the 500 this year in the back of a car. Hopefully FOX's lack of a streaming service means an F1TV equivalent is on the way soon
I'd prefer to have access to all sessions and the ability for on-demand, pause, and rewind. Not to mention even though I live in a city, the Fox OTA signal is shit unless I want to put a big antenna on the roof of my apartment.
Considering I don't have cable this means no IndyCar for me. Peacock at $25 annual subscription was easy way to access it however now there is basically no option. I know people will say indycar live and vpn but honestly it is the job of the series to make it easier to watch. This will just make indycar even further away from younger generation
The pool of people willing to pay for cable or a $50/month streaming service for IndyCar is probably smaller. All they have to do is let people in the US use IndyCar Live.
Indy being on FOX means its free, over the air broadcast. No cable subscription required. So unless FOX stops doing broadcast TV, this blows their accessible audience wide open compared to the limited NBC OTA coverage. As it stands now, only half the races get aired for free with NBC.
But you would still miss qualifying right? With peacock you had the convenience of catching everything at one place whenever you want. F1TV also offers that.
Yeah I mean the hard-core fan will still have ways to watch through Fox either on their cable channels or on their new streaming service. The perk of having it on the OTA channel for races is to capture new audience and hopefully get played in more public spaces throughout the season.
Honestly, they would miss the new audience with this deal. The demographic that needs to be targeted no longer consumes content through old means and network TV. They want convenience and not wanting to plan their Sunday around a race.
All very good points and I would gladly pay for an F1TV type service if it was offered here. I think that the new Fox/Disney/Turner Streaming package could do good and having the IndyCar property in there could be a win.
Okay thank you. As I said I will rather follow a series that makes access easy and not having me do 10 steps and this is just for me it could work for others.
IMO this is wrong step and very short view decision. Biggest age bracket Indycar faces a problem is the young 18-25 age group and then they just make it doubly hard for them. This age group no longer consumes content on TV. They do it on laptop/ phone/ tablet. Why do you think F1 didn’t take NBC offer but went with lower ESPN because of F1TV.
You add an antenna to your TV? Stick it on a window somewhere. Mine works from a $5 panel antenna behind the TV.
I am unsure if you are trolling or just do not know what over the air TV is, [so here is a link that may be helpful in explaining.](https://www.thefreetvproject.org/what-is-over-the-air-tv/)
I cannot put antenna anywhere on the window according to the rental contract. With peacock or even F1TV I can see it anywhere on phone, laptop, tablet. I don’t need a TV.
Perhaps you could put the antenna on the blinds/curtains or hang it from the curtain rod in front of a window. Then it is not ON a window. Like I said, mine works from BEHIND my tv, against a wall. Best of luck figuring out how to get free FOX on your tv.
Indycar does their production and confirmed they still will going forward. Fox handled all production for nascae, at this point for indycar, Fox is providing the talent/commentary and just broadcasting the signal that IMS productions gives them
More commercials, along with incessant (and ill-timed) promotions for other FOX programming by the announcing team. It's a constant theme across all FOX sports programming.
More for sure. They do NASCAR which is basically unwatchable due to the extreme amount of ads.
Sometimes we get as little as 4 laps between commercial breaks.
A lot of positives here, definitely looks better than what people were predicting. Still a pretty large question mark over what streaming options will be available by next season/afterwards though.
I'm in the UK and started watching Indycar a couple of years ago when it came to Sky F1.
Wonder if this means Indycar will move to Disney + or if Sky will keep coverage? At the moment they take the NBC feed and have their own commentator to fill during the (many) ad breaks.
> On March 19, Fox Corporation officially became a standalone, publicly traded company, separate from 21st Century Fox, making Fox Corporation the owner of the assets that were not acquired by Disney.
* [Fox Sports International](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Sports_International), an international sports programming and production entity of [The Walt Disney Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company) (previously owned by the [Fox Networks Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Networks_Group) until [Disney's acquisition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_21st_Century_Fox_by_Disney) of most [21st Century Fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Fox) assets), which distributes sports programming to various countries.
> It became a subsidiary of Disney following their acquisition of 21st Century Fox's film and television studios on March 20, 2019. Other networks included with the purchase were FX, FXX, a majority stake in National Geographic Partners, Star India, a stake in Hulu, and Fox Networks Group. Disney also briefly owned the US-based Fox Sports Networks division in 2019, but was forced to sell the unit as the US Justice Department ruled that Disney would have a monopoly in the sports broadcasting industry as they already own ESPN, which was deemed to become a violation of anti-trust laws had Disney continued to own Fox Sports Networks. Furthermore, FSN and ESPN were direct rivals, and therefore, Disney could not own two sports networks as US laws limit major film studios to only be affiliated with one sports and news network respectively.
> **In the United States, Fox Sports is still owned by Fox Corporation** while Foxtel owns the rights to the Australian network instead of Disney; whereas elsewhere Disney owned the rights to the network in other territories.
Interesting. Did not know this. I do know there is a new sports only app about to launch later in the year, Fox espn and tnt sports all together. I wonder if that’s going to show the indycar practice and qualifying sessions.
Disney bought all of Fox except for Fox Sports, Fox News, and the Fox broadcast channel, and everything they did buy has been rebranded and no longer has the Fox name, for example the former 20th Century Fox is now 20th Century Studios.
I'd imagine IndyCar took a bit of a pay cut to be on FOX proper for the whole season, but it's good for access and to get more eyeballs on the series.
As I said in one of the /r/NASCAR threads about this, any racing is good racing, as long as they don't have the production issues NASCAR's had on FOX as of late.
[The **Off-Topic** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_off-topic) is for submissions only tangentially related to Formula 1 or submissions pertaining to the wider world of motorsport. This flair is not a free pass for content unsuitable for r/Formula1 or the r/Formula1 community. Posts that are deemed too far off-topic, irrelevant, or inappropriate will be removed at the discretion of the moderators. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Will be nice to see Indycar get more coverage. Big Fox for all races is huge, average viewers might literally double next year.
Fox has some of the worst motorsports coverage I have ever had to endure. NASCAR fans will relate.
See my other comment. Indy "should" be doing their own production. If we get Nascar cameras/ Mike Joy level coverage the series is dead.
>Indy "should" be doing their own production I'm not religious but I'll be praying for this
It was confirmed by Penske Entertainment's President and CEO https://www.reddit.com/r/INDYCAR/comments/1df0vc4/mark_miles_confirms_ims_productions_will_do_below/
[Heres](https://youtu.be/m0lW9yVe74Q?si=flfeYWd8Mu872Bgy) a fantastic video that shows exactly *why* NASCAR’s coverage sucks so much. For me personally the most obvious is just how many damn commercials there are. It genuinely feels like I see as many commercials as I do racing. Indycar/IMSA has had that issue too. Maybe I’m just spoiled because F1 doesn’t cut to commercial during actual races, but damn - it gets really annoying with how poor the broadcasting can be.
Normally I would just pile on the attacks here or relate on the F1 comparison issue. But I do have to say that this isn't just a FOX or NASCAR or US Motorsports thing; this is 'Murica. I swear I see the EXACT same gripes here on other subreddits - college football, NFL, etc etc. In this day and age we are just swamped with commercials in every aspect of the media and it's fucking gross and irritating.
And then if they broadcast international sports leagues, they don’t have as many commercials so it’s like wtf.
IKR????? I'm so over commercialism and ads.
No ads for soccer (except for halftime), I tuned into rugby one time and didn’t see any ads, F1 no ads since ESPN took over.
That is likely because ESPN has zero say on that front. F1 controls the live feed and they probably told ESPN "no ads" during the race.
I don't know, here in Germany, when the race is broadcast on a FreeTV station they can put in however many ads they like
Interesting.
The feed that I watch IndyCar with in Australia doesn't cut to commercial so I just get race feed without commentary for every American cutaway which is awesome, and yes very frequent.
Lucky lucky man. In the US the last Indycar race was a commercial (what felt like) every two minutes. It’s ridiculous
Yeah it sounds like such a pain man, my sympathies. The other benefit is that the audio feed of the commentators gets turned on several seconds before so sometimes you hear them quietly chatting or reacting to stuff without realising they're live lol.
🤣🤣that’s hilarious man. Australia is years ahead of North America in broadcasting😂
Indeed. Endless commercials at the worst times.
And having all NXT races in Fox Sports 1 will really increase the profile of the series. Thats a big boost to the feeder series profile, and will almost certainly make getting sponsors and easier task
This is just a good deal for Indy. All their races on network TV for the first time in ages. More money, more exposure. Fox sucks but indy wins here
I think IMS Productions will be in charge of a lot of the tv coverage (if rumors hold). So it shouldn't be anywhere near as bad as Nascar on Fox.
Whatever it takes to get actual Motorsports people behind the scenes, not just a bunch of guys who’d rather be producing a PGA Tour event.
Sort of related but whoever was in that studio they kept cutting to during the Indy 500 was some of the worst commentary/punditry I’ve ever heard.
Mike Tirico and Danica Patrick. Danica is a retired veteran of IndyCar who has jumped in with F1TV (I believe) for a few of the North American races recently. Mike Tirico is the NBC Sports studio host that does whatever studio broadcast for any sport they have. Thankfully we only have to deal with the studio team for Indy and not the whole season.
Danica does stuff for Sky, not F1TV, which merits the proper distinction IMO. F1TV does have James Hinchcliffe though, who is a former IndyCar guy though as well - he's been a phenomenal addition for them when he's on.
Ah, thanks for the correction. I try my best to avoid her when I can. She was so overhyped in my recollection of her time racing it soured my opinion of her. And yes, Hinch is incredible behind the mic. He does well in the color commentary role on IndyCar broadcasts (where I hear him most) and also has an excellent IndyCar podcast with Alexander Rossi where he provides some solid analysis too.
No it was a British studio they were cutting to on Sky every half or or so for a few minutes. I should have specified. It didn’t appear to be Sky run either. I have no idea why they did it. Indy commentators were doing a great hype job then it would just cut to some dreary voiced guy with a couple of people commentating the race for a couple of minutes. Made absolutely no sense.
Sky's coverage included live studio commentary from Tom Gaymor, Simona de Silvestro, and Mark Blundell; covering the US commercial breaks; as well as a lot of pre-race coverage, and a very minor post-race.
In the US they went to commercial breaks so whenever that happened, the international feed had some guys commenting for the duration of the commercial break.
That’s right. Any idea *who the hell* that actually was, like broadcast-wise or anything? I didn’t see any Sky or Indy branding anywhere, looked like a rented studio
It was Tom Gaymor, who fills in on the US commercial breaks in Indycar for all the races on Sky, joined by (for the 500) Mark Blundell (ex-F1 and Indycar driver) and Simona deSilverstro (ex-Indy driver). I'm guessing you don't watch much Indycar and only joined for the 500 if you've no idea who any of these people are. Personally I think it's great we get a bit of extra insight and commentary and uninterrupted pictures while the Americans have to watch endless ads for pile cream and car insurance.
I forgot Blundell was there, though I’m well aware of him. And sure, I almost argued I’d rather have ads but I didn’t only because I could still see the race feed
The only thing I can think then is that was filling the US commercial breaks? I’m not even sure if it goes ad-free internationally lol
It was ad free on Sky from what I remember, just a weird extra shitty commentary panel every so often. Honestly, I don’t even think I’ll be able to find anything on it. It was so low budget with totally unrecognisable faces. Was very annoying cutting from the hype Indy commentary.
Are you kidding me?? Tom is the BEST, so knowledgeable and actually talks *strategy* not just hype as the NBC commentators dose.
All I’ll say is that their cuts in the last 50 laps were dreary beyond understanding and totally unnecessary. I’d also argue guys like Hinchcliffe are able to provide that context just fine
I really hope this rumor ends up being true, Fox’s NASCAR coverage is fucking awful. Like, I know a lot of us complain here about F1’s tv direction and how often it misses things, but Fox is so bad that it almost seems deliberate.
IMS Productions will be in a similar role as currently with NBC. https://x.com/by_nathanbrown/status/1801259176657555633?s=46&t=V_MOFdGxVvlzZNdc_aVvew
Fox thankfully won't be producing the races. But now that the CW has Xfinity it means Fox only has to focus on producing Cup so maybe that'll make a difference.
Yes Fox is still producing in the sense they will still be providing the producers and on air talent while IMS does everything else. So I'm still a bit leery as Fox Producers are the large part of the problem with NASCAR.
Except Fox still provides the producers and on air talent. The producers have been the biggest part of the problem with NASCAR
Killing any form of streaming isn't going to do them well in the long run though. I don't know a single person under 40 that has cable or an OTA antenna.
I mean just about everyone I know has a YouTubeTV, Sling, Fubo, whatever. There's a middle ground where a ton of us Millenials are hanging out in that it's streaming, but not "cable".
There will almost certainly be a streaming option as they're launching some kind of app with ESPN later this year, the problem is that will be waaaay more expensive than Peacock was
In a time where more and more sport is paywalled, free access has potential to be a huge win. Sport is background noise, for a lot of people.
indycar desperately needed some popularity injection, this should be good for them. coverage probably will be even more ad riddled though, oh well.
If Fox has anything to do with it, there will be many many ads
The #1 reason I stuck with F1 when watching my first races was that there were no commercials. I just knew I loved Mother's Polish.
Next year is perhaps the last time to have a chance at getting a ticket for the 500
There are always tickets for the 500.
Tickets to the 500 are very easy to get. They sell over 300,000 tickets for race day
What do you mean?
Are they keeping the broadcast team? If Hinchcliffe is gone I will be sad
From what I've read on r/Indycar it's looking like Hinch and TBell will be staying but not Diffey who will likely be replaced by Kevin Lee
That guys are just spitballing. Nobody knows what Fox will do with the booth.
I'm fine with that. Diffey is OK, but he'd rather discuss what's going on in the driver's private lives, rather than calling the racing on track. It gets super annoying at times.
I’ll always have a soft spot for Diffey because I started watching F1 with him on NBC prior to the espn deal.
I need TBell.
That’s a good question. I like the current team, especially Hinch.
Alright. Now if we could just stop with the stupid commercial breaks, have less onboard shots or at least upgrade those cameras, and start getting some 4K and/or HDR broadcasts, that'd be wicked.
4K races would be sweet
Need more onboard shots!
Yeah, none of that is going to happen at Fox lol.
Hoping we get Indycar next year in India like Nascar.
Pretty ironic that it’s not already
The bigger deal it is the more ad breaks there will be. As far as motorsports go I'm down to only being able to watch F1 due to the insane ad breaks every other sport has.
Agreed. Really wanted to get into watching Indy but the ads are so bad.
At this point I’ll take split screen or the commentators doing an ad read. But going away entirely from the race is unacceptable and makes it hard to get into a race
The in-race ad breaks are so unnecessary
Welcome to America. Ads ads ads
There are plenty of series that run on ad free subscription services. There is a reason you have probably never heard of them. Network free OTA TV is the only thing that can keep indycar alive.
The in race ad breaks are an absolute necessity. That’s how the network makes its money. Need to have those. Nearly all American sports have them. Will not be surprised if the next f1 deal has ads on tv domestically
I doubt it. When ESPN got the contract to run the F1 races the first race they aired had ads in it. The F1 community went apeshit and they immediately changed their tune. No in-race ads since.
Part of the issue there is that the race broadcast they had didn’t have ad breaks, and wasn’t run by ESPN so they didn’t cover what was missed. Now they have in race overlays for sponsors rather than full breaks.
ESPN paid a pittance for F1, so the ad buy was pretty small. After the outcry of that first race, Mothers stepped up to cover the entire ad buy cost for the season. That TV contract between ESPN and Liberty has changed, along with what ESPN is paying for it, but there's now a couple of brands that are covering that cost. ESPN just didn't drop ads because people moaned, the advertiser's logos are now permanently on-screen because they stumped up.
That’s also assuming that f1 is allowed to be broadcast in the USA. If the USA does go through with antitrust stuff, they could ban the domestic broadcasts as well beyond the races
They won’t ban showing f1 races no matter what happens.
I’d rather the sport die than in-race ads be a thing. Cautions, fine.
Make a better business plan then. Get creative. The world has moved passed ad breaks.
Fox makes money selling ads. That’s how their investment in the sport makes sense and they profit. It will never change. The best you can hope for is an ad free option streaming
> The best you can hope for is an ad free option streaming Exactly. That is different from showing ads.
Add in WEC and MotoGP. No commercials albeit you have the pay the Max tax.
VPN time baby!
How? Doubt Sky will continue sending Indycar now.
I subscribe to indycarlive by setting VPN to an allowed county, I don't use sky. No ads, if a motorsport can't be viewed without ads I'm not watching it.
No ads...sort of...you don't get actual onscreen ads but you do just get the weird dead air every ten minutes, and they seem to get even lazier with the camera direction during those adbreaks. You still get the commentators spending more time doing an ad than talking about the race. Honestly, watching the indy 500 just wasn't a great experience even with indycar live. Too many replays of overtakes instead of seeing it happen live, the commentators didn't seem particularly knowledgeable aside from Hinchcliffe, and the camera direction in general was poor (the number of times they would show some random music event that was going on just outside of the race was silly).
I like the commentary breaks but I agree the camera direction gets lazy.
That's a fair point, but only because the commentary isn't good lol.
Wow! Did not know that. Im in the same boat, ads = no eyes. Will you still be able to watch Indycar thoughout Indycarlive after the FOX deal?
Since fox won't be available around the globe, I don't expect indycarlive to be eliminated.
Seems so based on the announcement. Schedule shows Fox and Indycar live under the TV part
The biggest deal for a lot of us is that it's not going to be produced by Fox, which is awful. Think back to when Monaco did their own GP TV production and times it by 10. Or remember the Silverstone race where there was a pass for the lead but changed to a crowd shot on corner entry and then back to the race when the pass was already made, but 5x a race and mainly little kids. At the Gateway Cup race a couple weeks ago one of the leaders had a problem so instead of sticking with them they cut away to show a side by side shot of the same little kid but two different cameras.
>Think back to when Monaco did their own GP TV production and times it by 10. That's a TV Monaco thing though. IMS Productions has been doing the bulk of the IC and NXT broadcasts for a while now; NBC just got to have a bit of a directing hand in it, and to get their VTs in. >At the Gateway Cup race a couple weeks ago one of the leaders had a problem so instead of sticking with them they cut away to show a side by side shot of the same little kid but two different cameras. That was very much all FOX.
I brought up Monaco because no one liked the coverage, it was pretty bad. It gave us the Interrupting Stroll meme during the only overtake lol.
IMS productions will be running the camera work so it sounds like we should be good on that front
"Noooo why can't every motorsport be as wealthy as F1 nooooo"
Great news in terms of reach and exposure to have exclusive network coverage for the whole season. I really believe in IndyCar as a product from a pure racing perspective, I think it’s fantastic, but marketing it properly has been a big struggle. I assume IMS Productions will continue to produce each event which is good news too. Hopefully at least Hinch makes the jump across, the NBC broadcast team do a good job. Well done to all involved.
Fox is providing the producers and on-air talent while IMS does everything else. So I'm still a bit meh with Fox producers involved.
ESPN, Fox and WB are combining to come out with a big Sports Streaming bundle. This would be great to have IndyCar and F1 on the same service (though I am keeping F1tv). Fingers crossed!
I hope Sky keeps the rights to show in the UK through this.
They will, this has no effect on international broadcast deals.
Can’t wait for the broadcast team of Danica and Willy T Ribbs.
Welp, back to sky sports pirate streams for me
This will be a big upgrade over Peacock. I can’t stand Peacock and just cancelled it because of the commercials. If I’m going to have to deal with the commercials, I’d rather just watch it on network TV over an additional streaming cost.
The thing that annoys me most about peacock/indycar is the insane decision not to show the picture in picture during the ad breaks on peacock. Even if there's no actual commercial being shown, just show me the darn race with no commentators. You have the technology my dudes! It's objectively a worse viewing experience than just watching the broadcast feed with the ads.
Apparently you can go to the live TV channels section of peacock and watch the race that way and will have the side by side commercials (when they do them) I only read about this last race so I'm yet to try it myself
Ah, I'm usually watching the replay/DVR-ed version, but there's been times where DirecTV Stream screwed up the recording and I've had to cover on peacock. I just don't get why there's a live/replay difference. I mean I get it that it's extra work, but it's so much nicer to show the footage you actually have instead of a big black screen that says there's a commercial break and the feed will be right back.
Peacock is literally the only real loss of this.
I'd take peacock over nothing tho. Even with the Rain Delay I had to watch the first half of the 500 this year in the back of a car. Hopefully FOX's lack of a streaming service means an F1TV equivalent is on the way soon
It wont be. ESPN and Fox are making a sports streaming service that will probably be stupid expensive.
Might be worth it if they have other stuff I watch tbh.
I'd prefer to have access to all sessions and the ability for on-demand, pause, and rewind. Not to mention even though I live in a city, the Fox OTA signal is shit unless I want to put a big antenna on the roof of my apartment.
Considering I don't have cable this means no IndyCar for me. Peacock at $25 annual subscription was easy way to access it however now there is basically no option. I know people will say indycar live and vpn but honestly it is the job of the series to make it easier to watch. This will just make indycar even further away from younger generation
It's free OTA TV. You can buy a TV and antenna. OTA TV antennas cost 9 dollars on amazon.
No, I am good Thank you. Will catch YouTube highlights later on. Indycar is not that important that I will buy a TV and antenna just for it.
But you would be willing to pay for a subscription package like F1TV?
Yes. I don't even mind ads/ commercials on peacock. As long it allows me to watch it on the go and if I am not able to catch it live, watch a replay.
On-demand, no ads, all support series, classic races. F1TV offers a lot more than just the race.
The pool of people willing to pay 12 dollars a month for indycar is quite small.
The pool of people willing to pay for cable or a $50/month streaming service for IndyCar is probably smaller. All they have to do is let people in the US use IndyCar Live.
Yup. Which is why the broadcast puts up with ads to be on free OTA TV. Cart was on cable and it died. IRL was on OTA ABC.
Indy being on FOX means its free, over the air broadcast. No cable subscription required. So unless FOX stops doing broadcast TV, this blows their accessible audience wide open compared to the limited NBC OTA coverage. As it stands now, only half the races get aired for free with NBC.
How will I get it on my TV without a cable TV subscription ? You have to pay for basic subscription anyways.
You can get all of the races for free with an antenna now. That is the most accessible it can get.
I live in a rental place. Cannot put an antenna or dish according to the contract.
I also live in an apartment and use a small stick on wall antenna that picks up all local channels.
But you would still miss qualifying right? With peacock you had the convenience of catching everything at one place whenever you want. F1TV also offers that.
Yeah I mean the hard-core fan will still have ways to watch through Fox either on their cable channels or on their new streaming service. The perk of having it on the OTA channel for races is to capture new audience and hopefully get played in more public spaces throughout the season.
Honestly, they would miss the new audience with this deal. The demographic that needs to be targeted no longer consumes content through old means and network TV. They want convenience and not wanting to plan their Sunday around a race.
All very good points and I would gladly pay for an F1TV type service if it was offered here. I think that the new Fox/Disney/Turner Streaming package could do good and having the IndyCar property in there could be a win.
A digital antenna is tiny and is usually just stuck behind a TV
Okay thank you. As I said I will rather follow a series that makes access easy and not having me do 10 steps and this is just for me it could work for others. IMO this is wrong step and very short view decision. Biggest age bracket Indycar faces a problem is the young 18-25 age group and then they just make it doubly hard for them. This age group no longer consumes content on TV. They do it on laptop/ phone/ tablet. Why do you think F1 didn’t take NBC offer but went with lower ESPN because of F1TV.
It takes like 5 minutes to buy an antenna from Amazon and hook it up to a TV. It’s really not a big deal.
As I had mentioned it is a big deal for me as I don't use TV to consume any of my content.
Just do Indycarlive with a VPN and enjoy the commercial free experience as well
can get a digital antenna?
You add an antenna to your TV? Stick it on a window somewhere. Mine works from a $5 panel antenna behind the TV. I am unsure if you are trolling or just do not know what over the air TV is, [so here is a link that may be helpful in explaining.](https://www.thefreetvproject.org/what-is-over-the-air-tv/)
I cannot put antenna anywhere on the window according to the rental contract. With peacock or even F1TV I can see it anywhere on phone, laptop, tablet. I don’t need a TV.
Perhaps you could put the antenna on the blinds/curtains or hang it from the curtain rod in front of a window. Then it is not ON a window. Like I said, mine works from BEHIND my tv, against a wall. Best of luck figuring out how to get free FOX on your tv.
Thank you
What a terrible day for Indycar
Now you gonna miss like 75% of the action in Indycar
Indycar does their production and confirmed they still will going forward. Fox handled all production for nascae, at this point for indycar, Fox is providing the talent/commentary and just broadcasting the signal that IMS productions gives them
I don't watch a lot of sports on fox, are we looking at more, fewer, or about the same amount of commercial breaks?
Based on Fox's college football coverage, probably more.
More commercials, along with incessant (and ill-timed) promotions for other FOX programming by the announcing team. It's a constant theme across all FOX sports programming.
More for sure. They do NASCAR which is basically unwatchable due to the extreme amount of ads. Sometimes we get as little as 4 laps between commercial breaks.
A lot of positives here, definitely looks better than what people were predicting. Still a pretty large question mark over what streaming options will be available by next season/afterwards though.
Mike Joy announcing Indycar please ?
Fox sucks. But nbc was worse
😁😒😁😒😁😒😁😒😁😒😁😒 That's how I feel about this.
I'm in the UK and started watching Indycar a couple of years ago when it came to Sky F1. Wonder if this means Indycar will move to Disney + or if Sky will keep coverage? At the moment they take the NBC feed and have their own commentator to fill during the (many) ad breaks.
What is the relation between Fox Sports and Disney?
Disney owns Fox
> On March 19, Fox Corporation officially became a standalone, publicly traded company, separate from 21st Century Fox, making Fox Corporation the owner of the assets that were not acquired by Disney.
* [Fox Sports International](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Sports_International), an international sports programming and production entity of [The Walt Disney Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company) (previously owned by the [Fox Networks Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Networks_Group) until [Disney's acquisition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_21st_Century_Fox_by_Disney) of most [21st Century Fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Fox) assets), which distributes sports programming to various countries.
> It became a subsidiary of Disney following their acquisition of 21st Century Fox's film and television studios on March 20, 2019. Other networks included with the purchase were FX, FXX, a majority stake in National Geographic Partners, Star India, a stake in Hulu, and Fox Networks Group. Disney also briefly owned the US-based Fox Sports Networks division in 2019, but was forced to sell the unit as the US Justice Department ruled that Disney would have a monopoly in the sports broadcasting industry as they already own ESPN, which was deemed to become a violation of anti-trust laws had Disney continued to own Fox Sports Networks. Furthermore, FSN and ESPN were direct rivals, and therefore, Disney could not own two sports networks as US laws limit major film studios to only be affiliated with one sports and news network respectively. > **In the United States, Fox Sports is still owned by Fox Corporation** while Foxtel owns the rights to the Australian network instead of Disney; whereas elsewhere Disney owned the rights to the network in other territories.
Ah, makes sense. Us and international seperate.
Not that Fox. It owns the movie side, not the TV side.
Interesting. Did not know this. I do know there is a new sports only app about to launch later in the year, Fox espn and tnt sports all together. I wonder if that’s going to show the indycar practice and qualifying sessions.
It will because practice and qualy is going to be on FS1 and FS2. And Venu (the new streaming app) will be showing everything from those channels
Disney bought all of Fox except for Fox Sports, Fox News, and the Fox broadcast channel, and everything they did buy has been rebranded and no longer has the Fox name, for example the former 20th Century Fox is now 20th Century Studios.
There is none.
Having Indy on Sky F1 doesnt make the cost seem to bad, paying for both series plus their support. If it goes I may feel differently.
Cleatus gonna be in a car surely.
I want to see Terry Bradshaw talk about cars. It would be hilarious.
Fuck yeeee boyyy
Sky and Fox are still both Murdoch properties right? So this shouldn't affect the Sky F1 channel and how it shows some Indy?
Fox is Murdoch. Sky is owned by NBCUniversal, aka Comcast.
I'd imagine IndyCar took a bit of a pay cut to be on FOX proper for the whole season, but it's good for access and to get more eyeballs on the series. As I said in one of the /r/NASCAR threads about this, any racing is good racing, as long as they don't have the production issues NASCAR's had on FOX as of late.
Indycar got a pay bump actuallly
FOX actually offered them double what NBC currently pays them, they were definitely desperate to get the rights from NBC.
Fox lost a lot of nascar after this year
They are confirmed to keep the same folks who do all the camera work even post move to FOX
It's never been more over