Eric Shanks grew up an Indy 500 fanatic who vows to make race Fox Sports' biggest event of the year
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — As an Indiana native, Eric Shanks can't remember exactly when the rite of passage began of traveling to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His first Indianapolis 500 memory is of the 1985 race, Danny Sullivan's 'Spin and Win' 1985 victory, when Shanks was around 14 and had fully embraced the way his home state played such a role in American culture.
'I think everybody takes pride in there being a spotlight on this part of the country,' Shanks said. 'The Pacers are only in the playoffs when they are in the playoffs, the Colts aren't always in. But this is a guarantee every year.'
When he became CEO of Fox Sports in 2010, Shanks had a wish list of events he wanted for the network. Always at the top was the Indianapolis 500, a property Fox Sports finally landed this year. The network is in its first year of a new broadcast deal with IndyCar and on Sunday televises its first Indy 500.
Shanks from the start has vowed the production will be the biggest of the year for Fox Sports — a lofty promise for a network that also carries the Super Bowl and the World Series, among other major sporting events.
'We are going to blow the doors off of Indy. We're going to bring everything that Fox has to bear,' he said.
He's been relentless in pursuing his promise and has spent the first five IndyCar races of the year working out early-season glitches that ranged from an unstable graphics package, issues delivering timing and scoring, a mid-race loss of transmission, and enough bumps to drive Shanks nuts as he strives for a perfect production. The work has gone on at the same time Fox Sports televised the first 16 races of the NASCAR season, a run that culminated last Sunday night with the All-Star race.
Only four of the NASCAR races were on Fox, and even with the rain-effected season-opening Daytona 500, that quartet averaged 4,986,000 viewers.
Fox promised IndyCar its entire 17-race slate will be aired on broadcast — including both days of last weekend's qualifying — but the numbers have been sporadic and unable to keep pace with NASCAR.
The IndyCar ratings don't bother Shanks.
'I think you just want to be constantly showing growth in a lot of areas,' he said. 'You want to be showing growth in attendance. I'm happy to hear merchandise sales are up — you've got new sponsors coming in — you just want to show growth.'
Fox Sports last week made several changes to races later this season (mainly start times) to ensure IndyCar and NASCAR do not go directly head-to-hear, something that happened several times earlier this year when the network juggled both racing series. But Shanks told The Associated Press he is not considering moving IndyCar off of Fox to Fox Sports or another property if the ratings don't improve over the next few weeks.
Instead, his focus is on ensuring the glitches through the first five races don't happen during the 109th running of 'The Greatest Spectacle in Racing' or the rest of the season.
'In each race, it actually has been something different,' Shanks said. 'You fix one thing and then there's something else to fix. There's a lot of different systems talking to each other and we're on the receiving end of a lot of it. So we're figure it out and we're trying to do more.' New innovation
Fox Sports is compensating through new innovation, including the image of a 'ghost car' graphic used in qualifying that showed how a car making a run tracked against the current leader. And he's bringing in major talent for Sunday, including Tom Brady for the ceremonial 'Fastest Seat in Sports' car, which will be driven by Jimmie Johnson; Michael Strahan, Danica Patrick, Tony Stewart and Super Bowl-winning tight end Rob Gronkowski as the Snake Pit grand marshal.
Fox Sports has a ton of material to work with, including a race-consuming cheating scandal involving Team Penske, the marquee team in IndyCar. It involves two-time defending winner Josef Newgarden, who is seeking to become the first driver in history to win three consecutive 500s.
The first Israeli is in the field as Robert Shwartzman stunned 33 other drivers by becoming the first rookie since 1983 to win the pole. Kyle Larson is attempting to complete the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 for 1,100-miles of racing in one day. Two-time reigning series champion Alex Palou, who has won four of the first five races this season, is trying to finally add the 500 to his resume and Pato O'Ward, the most popular driver in the series, is trying to bounce back from last year's heartbreaking last-lap defeat.
Shanks has used crossover since the start of the year — Fox produced three movie-production-quality commercials to introduce three IndyCar stars and all aired during the Super Bowl, one with a Brady cameo — and is using most of its network programming to promote Sunday's race. Gambling Added to Indy 500
He also achieved a goal in adding a gambling element to Sunday, something he's wanted to do for months.
'I really want to turn the Indy 500 into more of a Kentucky Derby day from a wagering standpoint. It's hard to understand how to wager on motorsports,' he said. 'On Kentucky Derby day, even if you don't know anything about horse racing, you put down an exacta or a trifecta, you got win, place, show. How can we figure out how to get that type of broad attention around an event that honestly kind of feels a lot like horse racing that day?'
The solution was a partnership with DraftKings, which will have 20 or more trifectas that people can pick from. Fox Sports analyst James Hinchcliffe will pick one trifecta that will be promoted by Fox.
'I think that's element to this event, and motorsports in general, that if we can start to kind of like add that layer of interest for people, I think it can only be helpful to viewership,' Shanks said."
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
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