IMSA, NBC Sports Group announce six-year partnership to begin in 2019 - MotorSportsTalk

NBC Sports Group PR

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (April 30, 2018) – The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) will have a new U.S. broadcast home for its flagship IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, what is currently known as the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge and the IMSA Prototype Challenge presented by Mazda, as NBC Sports Group and IMSA today announced a six-year partnership starting with the 2019 season.

This enhanced media rights partnership includes a significant increase in network coverage of the WeatherTech Championship over 2018. Three races will broadcast on NBC and there will be more than 45 hours of WeatherTech Championship action televised on the NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) throughout the season. NBC Sports will present more than 100 hours of IMSA coverage across its broadcast, cable, and digital platforms. The NBC Sports App and NBCSports.com will offer flag-to-flag live streaming coverage of every WeatherTech Championship race to authenticated subscribers.

“The resonance and gravity of this new partnership with NBC Sports Group for IMSA fans and our stakeholders cannot be overstated,” said IMSA CEO Ed Bennett. “This agreement is the culmination of a comprehensive process to align ourselves with a media rights partner that will capitalize on the tremendous momentum the WeatherTech Championship and IMSA is currently enjoying, and will help our sport reach new heights. Without question, NBC Sports Group ‘gets’ motorsports and our unique premium product. We could not be prouder to call NBC Sports our future partner.”

“As the U.S. home of motorsports, we are excited to present IMSA’s high-quality and diverse racing circuit to our abundance of racing fans,” said Jon Miller, President, Programming, NBC Sports and NBCSN. “By utilizing our wide-array of broadcast, cable, and digital platforms, we can service IMSA and motorsports fans with more coverage and in more ways than ever before.”

This media rights agreement with NBC Sports Group capitalizes on IMSA’s unprecedented growth and its bright future including the sanctioning body celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2019. Among the highlights of this growth include record attendance at each race this year, unique television viewership for the year is on track to surpass last year’s record of 6.5 million viewers, and significant digital and social media growth.

NBC Sports Group is the home of motorsports in the U.S., with this agreement adding to its extensive portfolio of auto racing that includes NASCAR and INDYCAR.

The 2019 season starts with the 57th Rolex 24 At Daytona on Jan. 26-27, 2019 and the entire season broadcast schedule will be announced in the coming months.

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports