Fewer than three weeks before the start of the 2025 season, IndyCar unexpectedly announced Doug Boles as its new president.
While a surprising move on the surface, it spoke to the confidence that the owners have in Boles, who during his time as president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) has overseen more than US$150 million of strategic investment into the venue and was in charge for the first full-capacity crowd at the circuit for the 100th Indianapolis 500.
His remit is far more expansive now, and he has certainly not been short of challenges to kick off his tenure, including the controversy that surrounded Team Penske during qualifying for the Indy 500.
That story shouldn’t detract from some of the good work developing behind the scenes, though. The start of the IndyCar’s new broadcast deal with Fox has been promising, while the series appears far more open to discussing how to improve the overall product.
With a new event in Dallas set to debut in 2026 and rumours ramping up around a race in Mexico City, BlackBook Motorsport sits down with IndyCar’s new president to talk through the series’ biggest priorities.
How impressed have you been with the marketing that Fox has done around IndyCar and the Indy 500? It’s a big change from the days with NBC.
We had a great partner in ABC for so long here around the Indy 500, and then obviously NBC for the last several years. But I knew early on that Fox was going to be different.
When Eric Shanks, the president of Fox Sports, called me last summer, I was on the way to another race … and he started talking about ideas and things he wanted to do that didn’t just drive television [viewership], but the thought process was how do we create more excitement around the events for the people that are there.
We’ve got a partner who cares beyond the broadcast. They want to grow the series. They want to help the fan experience be better. We’ve been really fortunate in having a group of people that are passionate about the brand, not just the product they put on TV. That’s maybe the secret sauce right now in this Fox relationship that we might have missed a little bit in ABC and NBC.
This has been your best start to the season for viewership since at least 2016 but, take out the Indy 500, and it’s lower than 2022 and 2023. How can you make sure IndyCar is more than just the Indy 500?
We’re not any different than the Kentucky Derby [which] gets a massive number, and then horse racing in general people don’t pay attention except that one time a year. For us, the challenge always has been how do you get that energy and excitement around the 500 and get some percentage of those people to continue to follow the sport throughout the season?
I think you’ll find at the end of the year that our TV numbers [will be] up over the last several years for sure. I feel really confident in that sense because Fox has done such a good job. I can’t wait for our Gateway race in St Louis in two weeks on Sunday night, primetime on network television [which has] never been done in the IndyCar Series.
That should be a great [audience] number and a great opportunity to introduce IndyCar racing, especially IndyCar racing on an oval, to a lot of fans, so I still feel really encouraged.
Even if we got to a point where, in 2025, you could go back and find years where we were below other years, the important thing is this not an overnight fix. It is a long-term investment and the trajectory you’re going to see is going the right way. I’m pretty bullish that this is just the beginning of a great ride for the NTT IndyCar Series.
Gateway moving to a primetime TV slot was part of a wider shift of race start times. You’re obviously looking to avoid those Nascar clashes, so are you looking forward to seeing how well that works?
First, I had to call Curtis [Francois] and Chris [Blair] at Gateway and say “hey guys, are you okay if we move the World Wide Technology race from Sunday afternoon to Sunday night?” and that is a big challenge for them six weeks out from their event.
That just shows you how much people in this series, and motorsport frankly, really think about how can we do what’s best for the series? So first of all that was a big thank you to them, but this a great experiment for us and we’re pretty excited to see where that goes.
We did make some other adjustments to help us in terms of lead in or lead out and competition throughout the year so that we could try and leverage a better [audience] number.
One of the things we are most excited about the Fox relationship is that everything for this year is on ‘big’ Fox, not cable. But, in that, it had us landing on places [like] the Masters this year, you end up competing against things.
So as we’re looking at next year, it’s not just about getting on network TV, but it’s getting on network TV in places where we have a better chance to not be head-to-head with things that pull away our viewership. In our second year, we can be a little bit smarter about where we land and hopefully start times can really help keep some of those challenges we had [at bay], especially pre-Indy 500 this year.
How can you capitalise on this positive audience momentum on the commercial front?
One thing that can help us from a commercial standpoint – obviously the TV piece is really important – is having events on the schedule that are events, not just races.
And then something I know [McLaren Racing chief executive] Zak Brown and Dan Towriss at Andretti Global [are interested in] is how we can find partners that aren’t just automotive partners or traditional racing partners. We need those brands that are activating outside of our space to get people interested.
Towriss brought Chili’s along earlier this year, that’s a retail brand, that’s a customer brand. We need to find a way to add more brands like that in the sport. We have a great relationship with Verizon and Pepsi … so we need more partners like that that are in the market not just financially supporting the series, but actually out telling the story to their customers in places you might not necessarily expect to see racing.
Kyle Kirkwood drove his Andretti Global entry with Chili’s branding at the season-opening race in St Petersburg
You’re just 90 days into your new role. How have you found your transition to president of IndyCar?
It was a really quick turnaround on my side, and it was not something that I anticipated when the conversation started. It was a really short window from the time that first conversation started until the announcement was made. It was one of those things. When Roger [Penske] says “hey, I need your help”, it’s pretty hard to say no.
It’s been a pretty good 90 days. We’ve got the Fox deal going and really getting started with them. I think there’s been a lot success there, a lot of conversations with them going forward. A lot of side conversations with team owners and drivers and others about their thoughts on how we can make the series better, places where we need to leverage Fox more, places we need to promote more.
It’s been an exploratory time but, at the same time, you’ve got to be making decisions and moving forward. But generally I think it’s been pretty positive, and certainly had some wrenches thrown at me that have made it even more interesting.
You mentioned the Fox deal – how encouraging was it to see that viewership figure come out of the Indy 500?
I think we all felt like we were going to have a good television number because of all the promotion that Fox has put into it, not just the Super Bowl ads that they’ve put together but just the way they’ve leveraged other Fox platforms.
But at the same time on the Tuesday morning after the 500, you wake up and you hope the TV number is good because, if it’s not, it’s going to be hard to understand why it wasn’t. I often say one of the biggest challenges that the Indy 500 faces in terms of television is our date.
Obviously we’re not changing the date, that’s where we belong, but it is the first day of summer. I often joke with everybody the best thing that could happen for the Indianapolis 500 TV ratings is to have it rain in every major market in the US except Indianapolis, so that people are inside watching TV and not out at the lake or doing barbeques.
But when that number came out, it was certainly gratifying. If you’d have said to me “do you think you can get over seven million viewers?”, I would have said “no way”. And then the peak at 8.4 [million] is even more amazing.
You had a meeting with Zak Brown quite recently. Did he have any suggestions for the future direction of IndyCar?
The meeting was great – I think we first met in 1992 or 1993, I was working for the mayor of Indianapolis, he was still out trying to start a company before he ever really started, he was racing cars still and I think somewhere I still have his business card from back in the day.
Zak’s always been great, certainly passionate about the sport. He’s also not afraid to talk in the media, even if the talk is contrary to where we are. But we had a great meeting with Roger and a handful of others, and we talked about the independent officiating idea that we’re trying to move forward with, which I think will help with some of the officiating optics that we have in the series given Roger owns the series and also has a team.
But [Zak] is one of those people I think from not just the competition side but from a commercial side that can really help us continue to grow the sport so more fans pay attention, more fans are at the venue, sponsors are involved – so that’s one of the strengths he has and we’re definitely going to leverage.
You mentioned the idea of having events that are more than races. You have Dallas debuting next year – how excited are you for that new race and have you got designs on similar events moving forward?
You think about the beginning of our season where we kick off at St Petersburg, which is a great event and the whole city embraces it. Long Beach is another one that you would say is an event, and I think Arlington in Texas will definitely be the same with the Rangers and the Cowboys around the stadium there. I think the track is going to be great, the hospitality and the fan experience is going to be really strong.
We have to help the other partners that we have turn their races into events. It’s really important for us, especially as you try and attract a new fan who may not be a race fan. If you can give them more reasons to come experience it, then hopefully you can retain them as a race fan going forward.
Adding an event like Arlington [is] really important. We’re still trying to figure out Mexico City if that would end up being an event.
Mexican driver Pato O’Ward has been a big supporter of establishing an IndyCar race in his home country
Obviously with Pato O’Ward, Mexico is a big market for you. What are your plans there and was it frustrating seeing Nascar secure a race there first?
I’ve promoted a Nascar race here at the [Indianapolis Motor] Speedway for a long time and have always felt like the Nascar folks have been great partners with us. In my 90 days [as president], they have been great partners with the series … we share information, we share together to grow the sport.
I don’t know that there was frustration that they announced before we did, obviously it put pressure on the series to try and get our deal done … and I think we’re going to get there.
From the outside, I know people think Nascar and IndyCar are competing against each other. At some level, we are, but at another level, we need each other to be successful and we need to learn from each other. Nascar has been an open book with me forever and continue to be so I will just learn from them and then hopefully we get our event announced here soon.
Looking ahead to the future, what are your biggest priorities as president?
We’ve got to leverage our Fox relationship here in the States in a way that grows beyond television. So using that television growth to shore up sponsorships, to drive revenue for the teams so that the teams are healthier, and to get our fanbase younger. We’ve got to find a way to excite and engage a younger fan.
One of the most encouraging things out of our TV number around the Indy 500 was the growth in our 18 to 34 category, and that’s really important to us.
And then, I touched on already, but helping our current promoters just elevate their game, giving them the tools so that they can be more successful in their markets with ticket sales and sponsorship around those events. Those are probably the two most immediate ones.
And then the other one that’s a little longer term is where are we going to be on our engine, as well as our new car, and getting that all sorted out and figuring out how that’s going to look. Hopefully, we get that solved here in the next 90 days.
Don’t miss the latest news and insights from across the business world of motorsport. Subscribe to the BlackBook Motorsport Weekly newsletter here.