IZOD IndyCar Series Looking To Grow Its U.S. Fanbase

The new Indy Racing League CEO, Randy Bernard, has one obvious goal: to grow the American fanbase of the sport. With increased television coverage and new races in U.S. cities this season, he has a great chance of pulling this off.

After 15 years successfully promoting the Professional Bull Riders Inc., Bernard took the job at IRL hoping to give open-wheel racing the same kind of visibility he gave bull riding. Although he has only seen one Indy Car race (last weekend’s race in Brazil), he feels as if he already knows what direction the series needs to take.

Bernard wants to make the drivers stand out much more in the eye of the public, and let the American fans get to know them on and off the race track. There will be five races on the ABC Network this season, and the remaining 12 will all be on cable. With the recent contract with DirecTV and Comcast to get the Versus network back on DirecTV, thousands more Americans will be able to watch the Indy Car races this year.

From the beginning, Indy Car has been a U.S. based series. Though the attendance for U.S. races have been down recently, the league expect them to get back up this year.

Open-wheel racing took a hit in America when Tony George created the IRL in the mid-1990s to compete with the more established CART series, eventually causing a significant decline in the sport's fanbase.

Bernard said he doesn’t want to be too aggressive early on and that he is at a stage where he’s starting to understand some concepts and ideas, analyzing what is wrong and what needs to be done to improve the series.

With the drop in ticket prices for many of the races, look for the fans to start showing up to more events, especially the races here in the U.S. The Indianapolis 500 is a completely different situation—obviously because it is the biggest race in all of racing.

The marketing people for the sport are doing whatever they can to get the fans back in the seats at the track. And with the drivers growing in popularity, the sport looks to be on its way back up as far as the popularity goes here in the U.S.

This will all be greatly helped by American drivers performing well and winning on a regular basis. I'm looking at you, Danica and Marco. Will Power's season opening victory is going to go a long way in this project, and his future is bright.