What the Indy 500 Reveals About the Future of Live Sports

Drivers, start your engines!

Fans, grab your ear protection!

On Sunday, an estimated 350,000 people will pack the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 — the largest single-day sporting event on Earth. For three hours, 33 cars will scream around the 2.5-mile oval at 230 mph, covering 500 miles before someone drinks the milk.

But in 2026, filling a grandstand is only half the story.

As audiences splinter across streaming platforms and social media feeds, live sports have become one of the few forms of media that still command real-time attention. Motorsports, in particular, are experiencing a resurgence, fueled by personality-driven storytelling, younger fans discovering racing through TikTok and Netflix, and broadcasters rethinking how to package live events for modern audiences. The Indianapolis 500’s record-setting debut on Fox last year offered a striking example of how legacy sports properties can find new relevance — and new economic value — in a fragmented media environment.

Anthony Palomba’s research examines the intersection of entertainment, analytics and business strategy. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

The Darden Report spoke with Anthony Palomba, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, about the economics behind the Indy 500’s resurgence, what broadcasters are learning about Gen Z audiences and why live sports remain one of television’s most valuable assets.

Why are motorsports — and the Indianapolis 500 in particular — seeing renewed momentum right now?

The race represents something more than a motorsport tradition. It is a case study in how live events are reasserting their value in a media landscape otherwise defined by fragmentation and subscriber fatigue. The collective experience of watching a race unfold in real time, and the roar of engines and the tension of the track are not easily substitutable with on-demand alternatives.

This resurgence has been spurred in part by Netflix’s “Drive to Survive,” which debuted in 2019 and recast F1 drivers as celebrities, generating dramatic personal narratives that traditional broadcasts never offered. F1 viewership increased over 50% from the series’ debut. The pandemic further accelerated this momentum as audiences had time to discover new sports content, and the rise of TikTok cemented it as the clip economy favors drama, and crashes, passes and pit stop chaos translate exceptionally well into 10- to 15-second bites.

The addition of Grand Prix races in Las Vegas and Miami brought the sport into world-class cities with vibrant, diverse communities, a meaningful departure from motorsport’s historically rural roots. While other professional leagues have been preoccupied with parsing broadcasting rights, motorsport has invested in storytelling and personality, elevating drivers like Max Verstappen, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz into figures that casual fans actually follow.

Fox’s first Indianapolis 500 broadcast drew the race’s largest audience in 17 years. What did Fox do differently?

The infrastructure behind that performance was intentional, not accidental. Fox secured the IndyCar rights in June 2024, giving the series its broadest broadcast presence ever, all 2025 races on the Fox broadcast network, with no games hidden behind a cable paywall or streaming subscription.

Fox also leaned into production decisions that distinguished it from its predecessor. The network reduced commercial interruptions during green-flag racing, replacing full-screen breaks with double-box ads that kept the action on screen, a format audiences responded to favorably. Advertising economics worked out as well: average ad unit costs landed around $120,000, translating to a $17 cost per mile, or CPM, roughly two and a half times more efficient than average broadcast primetime inventory.

Why are live sports still so valuable in an era when younger audiences are abandoning traditional television?

Live sports remain one of the few reliable on-ramps for younger viewers who have largely abandoned linear television, and IndyCar has shown measurable traction with Gen Z in particular, an audience that media buyers have spent years trying to convert through algorithmic content and short-form video with limited success.

The challenge with Gen Z and Gen Alpha is not awareness, it is appointment behavior: these cohorts are accustomed to consuming content on their own terms, asynchronously, and without commercial interruption. Live racing disrupts that default. The visceral unpredictability of a 500-mile race, where a crash, a pit strategy gamble or a last-lap overtake can rewrite the outcome in seconds, resists the logic of watching later, because watching later means defeating the fun by already knowing the outcome.

For Fox, that tension is a programming asset. Delivering a younger audience that is otherwise structurally difficult to reach through conventional linear inventory is precisely the kind of value proposition that justifies rights investment and commands advertiser premiums well above what a similarly rated primetime drama could support.

What does the Indy 500’s success tell us about the future economics of sports media rights?

For networks navigating the economics of rights inflation, properties that deliver reliable live audiences, strong advertiser efficiency and younger demographic reach at a fraction of the cost of premium inventory represent a category worth paying close attention to. It speaks to the enduring premium on live, unscripted, appointment television in an era when almost everything else can be paused, skipped or streamed on someone else’s schedule.