IndyCar Banking On ‘100 Days To Indy’ Creating A New Audience For The Series

For decades, IndyCar and the famed Indianapolis 500 have been about its tradition, heroes, and history.

Beginning Thursday night at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on The CW, IndyCar will attempt to break away and feature its future.

The long-awaited, much-anticipated docuseries “100 Days to Indy” will debut on The CW April 27 from 9-10 p.m. Eastern Time.

IndyCar is hoping it will light a spark of interest in younger viewers, creating an audience similar to the way “Drive to Survive” on Netflix
NFLX
kicked Formula One into high gear, making it the fastest growing sport in the world.

“Having six episodes prior to the Indy 500 is going to be so important to drive people to our sport to show them the inside, not just what happens on the track,” IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske told me in an exclusive interview. “VICE Media and The CW are fully committed along with the teams. I’m going to be very interested to see the outcome.

“We are doing everything we can to make it great. We know what ‘Drive to Survive’ did for Formula One and we hope we get the same kind of bump from our fans with ‘100 Days to Indy.’”

The docuseries is a collaborative effort between IndyCar, VICE Media, and The CW – the fifth largest over-the-air television network in the United States.

The docuseries will give fans a behind-the-scenes look at IndyCar and its drivers from the beginning of the 2023 season through the 107^thIndianapolis 500 on May 28.

First-run showings will be every Thursday night for the next six weeks from 9-10 p.m. Eastern Time. After that, the series can be viewed on VICE TV, a cable channel.

The series can also be streamed on Vice’s website and on The CW App.

“All of it is free,” Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles told me. “If you can get on internet and you are a human being on the planet, you can get this. By internet, it is free and available.

“That is tremendous and presents great opportunities for us.”

Enter The CW

Brad Schwartz is President, CW Entertainment, responsible for programming strategy, planning creative and brand development and day-to-day operations.

The CW boasts some iconic affiliates including WPIX in New York, WGN in Chicago, KTLA in Los Angeles and WISH in Indianapolis. Over 99 percent of the United States can pick up The CW.

Prior to this year, The CW did not air sports programming. It began to air the LIV Golf Tour.

By agreeing to tell the story of the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar, The CW is making another major move into sports programming.

“It’s a really exciting project for us,” Schwartz told me in an exclusive interview. “What has always been amazing in broadcast, the reach of broadcast and what it is tailor-made for is sports.

“Sports has always done incredibly well.”

This may also be the next step in The CW entering the sports television business, creating another network capable of adding tremendous sports properties to its lineup.

“For us as The CW, and we look out and have more aspirations in the sports world, we aren’t going to jump in with NFL rights on Day One,” Schwartz explained. “But to find really amazing, emotional sports storytelling seems like a really good place to start. To partner with such amazing brands as IndyCar and the thrill of race car driving and to partner with an incredible production entity and brand that has always been contrarian and aggressive and exciting and differentiated in VICE Media, and combine that with the reach of The CW, it seems like a really exciting project.

“We’ve seen some success in shows of this ilk, whether it is ‘Drive to Survive’ on Netflix or other emotional sports documentary series like ’30 For 30’ it just seemed like a really good place for us to play.”

Younger Audience Needed For IndyCar

IndyCar’s audience is quite small, and it struggles for television ratings, although those have been on the upswing in recent years.

With its high-speed racing, close competition, engaging personalities, IndyCar has some of the best stories in sports that nobody has really heard about.

Can “100 Days to Indy” change that?

“That’s a good question,” Schwartz admitted. “We are going to find out.

“When I was in college and high school, I was a big IndyCar fan and even went to the Indy 500 one year. My dad was in the truck parts business in Canada. I grew up around that world. It’s something I’ve always been interested in.

“You think about the incredible drivers and the incredible athletes in these cars and the death defying speeds they are all racing at. There is such drama. They really are real-life superheroes in so many ways.

“There must be great stories. There are great characters. It is certainly an exhilarating environment and the team at VICE are the ones that can find it all out.”

The Indianapolis 500 is steeped in history and tradition, but IndyCar needs to look forward to encourage new fans to follow the series. The CW is a forward-thinking network that attracts a younger audience.

It’s television lineup from Gilmore Girls (2000-2007), Supernatural (2005-2020), The Flash (2014-2023), One Tree Hill (2003-2012) and Superman & Lois (2021-) have been quite popular with younger audiences.

Walk through the grandstands at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Race Day for the Indianapolis 500 and many of those spectators are 50 and over and have been coming to the Indy 500 for more than 30 years. It’s a grand American tradition on Memorial Day Weekend.

Walk over to “The Snake Pit” in Turn 3, and it’s a much younger group of fans, from teenagers to early 30s rocking and jamming to live music while the race flashes by behind the stage.

IndyCar, The CW, and VICE are hoping a younger audience will be introduced to the exciting storylines on “100 Days to Indy” and either tune into IndyCar action on NBC or attend IndyCar races in person.

“That is certainly a goal of IndyCar in putting this deal together,” Schwartz explained. “The CW has built a brand on always looking forward and looking at emergent trends instead of residual trends. Whether it is going back to ‘Gossip Girl’ or ‘Vampire Diaries’ or even ‘The Flash’ and ‘Arrow’ or ‘Riverdale’ The CW has put some of the greatest Pop Culture television shows of all-time into the world.

“We do target a younger audience. VICE is also a brand that has historically targeted really emergent trends and young audiences. If we can bring a little of those audiences to IndyCar, that’s an added bonus and a way to bring car racing to more people and the next generation of viewers, that’s a happy result of this project.

“But ultimately the storytelling will be universal, and all people will enjoy it.”

VICE Brings A List To The Project

The CW provides the network, but the team at VICE will create the product.

Patrick Dimon is the co-executive producer and director of “100 Days to Indy” and brings an impressive resume to the project.

Dimon is an Emmy Award-winning director, cinematographer, andproducer most recently producing and directing for Netflix, HBO, and Vice/Pulse Films. With over 15 years of international production experience Patrick is known for consistently delivering award-winning level products; specifically, for his direction of HBO Documentaries and the perennial Emmy and Peabody Award-winning investigative journalism program Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

In addition to this success, Dimon’s production team secured an additional three Emmy Awards in 2020 for the original all-access series: 24/7 Kelly Slater for Outstanding Edited Sports Series, Outstanding Camera Work, and The Dick Schaap Outstanding Writing Award. Most recently, Dimon directed the highly anticipated 8-part Netflix series following the top golfers in the world throughout the ’22 PGA season.

Dimon’s 20 years of diverse industry experience has provided him with versatility that is distinct from his peers. He has developed and directed short form as well as feature length and honed his skills working from sound stages to mountain ranges. This collection of experience hasprovided him with the opportunities to manage every aspect of a project’s development. He is as proficient in a story’s inception as he is with managing the practicalities of field production, direction, and edit.Having worked in over 25 countries.

Dimon has also proven he can deliver cost-effective project management even in the most diverse environments.

“The VICE team that is producing have hired an absolute ‘A level’ group of producers and writers and directors that are at the top of their field producing sports storytelling,” Schwartz said. “They are going to be embedded with all the drivers. They will be at all of the races leading up to the Indy 500 and they are going to be the one that finds all these stories.

“One of the really exciting things about how we are going to air it, it’s going to air six weeks in a row leading right into the Indy 500. It’s not day and date, but it’s as close to day and date as we can get because these stories are going to roll right into the event on Memorial Day Weekend.

“VICE will be doing all those stories. I’m looking forward to what they deliver.

“What is really exciting is this is going to air like a countdown every single week leading right into the moment of the Indianapolis 500.”

IndyCar has the highest number of fans, per capita, 50 and over and the smallest number of fans in the 18-34-year-old age group.

The CW is willing to take that gamble that “100 Days to Indy” will appeal to its younger demographic.

“We reach 99.8 percent of the country,” Schwartz said. “We have apps and digital platforms that have downloaded 100 million times, so we have incredible reach across the entire country on every platform including linear broadcast. I believe this platform can reach both of those audiences – the current IndyCar fans that can help us and to a new generation of fans. I think we are perfectly situated to handle both jobs and both audiences.

“That is what makes broadcast so special. It’s ‘broad’ and we reach everyone.”

Lifestyle Sells

The CW, VICE and IndyCar are selling a lifestyle as much as the racing.

IndyCar and the Indianapolis 500 features competitors that include equal parts glamour, bravery and daring.

They are able to confront danger without flinching.

“It’s all of those things,” Schwartz explained. “These are super athletes. They are so brave. They are doing death defying things. There is a glamour. All athletes are interesting in a certain way. It just takes a certain type of mindset to be the best at anything.

“To follow these people and their lives and their competitiveness and everything that goes into it is really compelling.

“That’s drama. That’s conflict. That’s excitement. And that’s what makes a good story.”

IndyCar drivers, team owners and other members of the greater IndyCar community attended the “World Premier” of “100 Days to Indy” at the Long Beach Convention Center on April 12.

“I think it’s a really good show,” 22-year-old IndyCar driver Rinus VeeKay of The Netherlands, who drives for Ed Carpenter Racing told me. “It’s what IndyCar needs. We need more fans for my age really, guys and girls that are, yeah, just not familiar with IndyCar, they don’t watch it.

“Everyone I’ve spoken to that goes to an IndyCar race that watches IndyCar cannot stop. They keep coming back. You just need to have people get to the races then they will keep coming back.

“I think new fans will be introduced to IndyCar and will come to the races. I think that’s just very important.

“We got Formula One that has really good marketing, but we really have to keep up with that at IndyCar.”

Although the concept of “100 Days to Indy” will be geared to attracting a younger audience, producers at VICE and officials at IndyCar believe fans of all ages will be entertained by each of the one-hour long shows, that includes roughly 45 minutes of storylines.

“That is absolutely the goal,” Schwartz said. “We want to make something that all IndyCar fans love and are so excited about and want to watch it and go deeper into the sport they love while at the same time creating stories that new fans and new viewers will find really compelling.

“That is what ‘Drive to Survive’ did. It brought F1 to a whole world of people that never watched F1 and found it really compelling and really exciting.

“I believe our series will be very similar in being able to excite fans and bring new fans to the stories.

“I promise you we are going to make it great.”