Indy 500 Sells Out for First Time Since 2016 Despite Series of Scandals

The Indianapolis 500 arrives this weekend with strong demand around the race locally, but controversy surrounding the sport’s owner.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is expecting attendance of 350,000 on Sunday after selling out its main grandstand for the first time since 2016, which was a unique circumstance as the 100th running of the iconic race.

That has led to IndyCar lifting its longstanding blackout of the local TV broadcast of the race for years when it does not sell out.

Fox is in its first season of a new media-rights deal with IndyCar as the sport’s lone U.S. broadcaster. Last year, the Indy 500 drew 5.34 million viewers on NBC, which was up 8% over the 2024 edition.

Prize money for Sunday’s race has not yet been revealed, but last year the Indy 500 shelled out a record $18.45 million, with winner Josef Newgarden taking home $4.2 million.

Penske Problems

Controversy continues to surround Roger Penske, who bought IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2019 and still runs Team Penske, one of the most successful in the sport.

Penske fired his IndyCar team’s president, Tim Cindric, managing director Ron Ruzewski, and general manager Kyle Moyer on Wednesday after two Penske cars—Newgarden’s and Will Power’s—were found to have violated modification rules for Indy 500 qualifying last weekend. Newgarden and Power were sent to the back of the grid for Sunday’s race.

This came just over a year after Team Penske was involved in a cheating scandal early in the 2024 IndyCar season. Newgarden was retroactively disqualified from last year’s season-opening race, which he won, along with his teammate, Scott McLaughlin, for rule violations around the illegal use of an in-race technology.