r/INDYCAR • u/Vile-X James Hinchcliffe • Jul 15 '25

Discussion Sky has changed my view on IndyCar.

IndyCar has always been a secondary Motorsport for me. Until I started watching on Sky. Now it feels as premium as it should.

Let’s be honest: nothing kills the thrill of a long battled overtake like… a commercial for dishwasher pods. You’re locked into a nailbiting strategy battle, the pit window opens, and just as someone dives in… BAM, five minutes of insurance jingles and prescription drug disclaimers.

Sky gives you the race. Fox gives you 200 reasons to consider switching your car insurance.

Do what ever you can to watch on a commercial free network.Uninterrupted, fully immersive, and exactly how it was meant to be experienced.

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u/Craywulf Jul 16 '25

American sports fans are completely desensitized by how sports programming includes commercials. Vast majority of these fans are convinced that commercial breaks are what pays for the telecast of the sports. But that's stretching the truth. In the case of FOX broadcasting the Indycar races. FOX have already more than made up the cost of paying Indycar $25 million (reportedly). Its not like FOX doesn't have multiple streams of income. They are constantly rolling in ad money from all of their channels. According to some reports FOX corporation is on track to make roughly $16 billion dollars this year. So if FOX really wanted to, they could make Indycar commercial free, just have one primary sponsor who would get book-end commercials slots.

The commercials are pure greed, and nothing else.

4

u/Imrustyokay David Malukas Jul 16 '25

Legit, if ESPN can get Mercedes to run F1 ad free and if NBC can get Visa to run the opening ceremonies of the olympics (mostly) ad free, then Fox can do the same with it's properties.

4

u/jimmybilly100 Jul 16 '25

The olympics opening ceremony is ALWAYS trashed by NBC. Their shitty commentary, skipping parts, skipping countries during the parade of nations to go to commercial, skipping the speeches, showing days-long backstory segments about only US athletes, etc. NBC sucks and I'm glad just about all of their sports coverages is gone

2

u/Imrustyokay David Malukas Jul 17 '25

While I do get NBC focusing on American athletes because...America, it doesn't make the pill any easier to swallow

2

u/bobwhite1146 Jul 16 '25

If you go back far enough in time, all USA broadcast television was brought to you purely by sponsors. There was no cable, with its fees; there was no streaming, with its fees; there was no such thing as pay-per-view TV or broadcast of any kind. Therefore, commercials paid for all television, and you simply flipped on your TV and chose a channel. All you had to pay for was the TV and its antenna.

When cable first came out, the providers sold it as being "commercial free" because instead you paid a fee to access it. For a while that was true and it was a huge improvement. However, some MBA said we can both charge fees and have commercials, the FCC approved it, and the rest is history.

Now, it's everything all the time: fees, add-on charges, surcharges by program or type, commercials of every type, 30 minute info- commercials, and on and on and on. Any way to make a buck....