With new races, a new title sponsor and a new TV deal, the aptly named Mark Miles has rescued IndyCar from what appeared to be an irreversible spinout
ark Miles isn’t an IndyCar champion. He hasn’t won the Indianapolis 500. In fact, he’s never even raced competitively. But following him around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway ahead of the 103rd running of the Indy 500 this Sunday, you would have thought he was one of the sport’s biggest stars. Even during a practice session, Miles was hailed by team members, approached for autographs and cheered from a sparsely populated grandstand.
Open-wheel racing had long ruled American motorsports. Drivers like Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt and Bobby Unser became household names in the 1960s and ’70s, and international influence and a second wave of big-name drivers—Michael Andretti, Rick Mears, Al Unser—took the sport to new heights in the 1980s and early 1990s, firmly establishing IndyCar predecessor CART as the nation’s top auto racing promotion. In 1992, the Indianapolis 500 drew a reported 14.
Against that gloomy backdrop, Mark Miles, then a Hulman & Company board member, was tapped to take over as the next CEO. Miles had no motorsports background, but he was an Indianapolis native who had just finished a four-year stint leading the organizing committee for Super Bowl XLVI, which was held in Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium and widely regarded as a success.
In 2014, the series introduced the Indianapolis Grand Prix, a road course in the Brickyard’s infield that serves as a lead-in to the Indy 500, and the following year the Indiana Finance Authority issued $93 million in bonds to improve the speedway facility. A year after that, IndyCar returned to Wisconsin’s Road America for the first time since Champ Car raced there in 2007; that race reportedly drew the track’s, some 50,000 people.
The NTT deal was spearheaded by Jay Frye, whom Miles hired as chief revenue officer in 2013; he later took over competition and operation duties and in December was promoted to IndyCar series president. Frye’s team operations background—he came from Nascar, where he was a team owner and principal, most recently running Red Bull’sto the sport—quickly made him popular among IndyCar’s team owners, and up and down pit lane they voice an admiration of Frye’s planning and long-term vision.
When Miles took over in 2012, he was saddled with a TV deal that split races between ABC and NBC; ABC had five races on broadcast spread throughout the season while NBC aired the rest of the season on its cable sports network. That arrangement meant viewers didn’t know where to find races and the series lacked TV promotion on a race-to-race basis. There were also frustrations with ABC.
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