For the first time in the illustrious century-plus long history of the Indianapolis 500, the race on Sunday was broadcast on Fox. And fans quickly noticed one significant difference on the network compared to broadcasts in past years on NBC: the sheer number of commercials throughout the event.
In some ways, Fox pulled out all the stops in their coverage of the Indy 500, including featuring several prominent former athletes from the network’s NFL coverage. Rob Gronkowski, Michael Strahan, and Tom Brady all made appearances during studio coverage of the event.
However, in terms of the action on the track on Sunday, fans felt that there were far too many cutaways for commercials that took away from key moments and ruined much of the rhythm on the broadcast.
In any big event like the Indy 500, there are always going to be commercials. So while the commercial-load is understandably frustrating to have to sit through, they are simply a necessary evil in the world of sports.
Unfortunately for Fox, this was far from the only complaint about the network’s broadcast. Perhaps the biggest complaint of the day came in the most important moment of the race.
In particular, the decision from Fox to cut away from showing Alex Palou, the Indy 500 winner, while he was crossing the finish line on the last lap to show a wreck that had little to no impact on the winner of the race was a decision that wasn’t overly well received.
Fox, of course, has plenty of experience covering racing given their NASCAR coverage for the past 24 years. But clearly, the network has plenty of work to do to get in the good graces of IndyCar fans after what most considered to be a lackluster broadcast of the 109th annual Indy 500.