IndyCar Sponsorship: What It Costs and Why UK Brands Should Pay Attention

I'll be honest with you. IndyCar isn't my specialist subject. I've spent 30 years in the UK paddock, raised £millions in sponsorship deals, and written a book about it. But most of that's been in BTCC, GT racing, F4 and the broader British motorsport ecosystem.

So why am I writing about IndyCar?

Because increasingly, the UK brands we work with are asking about it. They've seen what American motorsport can deliver in terms of audience, and they want to know whether IndyCar is a realistic proposition or just an expensive vanity exercise. The answer, as with most things in sponsorship, is: it depends entirely on how you approach it.

This guide is based on publicly available data, conversations with people who operate in the IndyCar paddock, and three decades of understanding how sponsorship economics actually work across different series. Where I'm giving you hard numbers, I'll tell you where they come from. Where I'm giving you opinion, I'll tell you that too.

The NTT IndyCar Series is America's premier open-wheel racing championship. If F1 is the global show, IndyCar is the American heartland equivalent, anchored by one event that dwarfs almost everything else in world motorsport: the Indianapolis 500.

The series runs 17 races across the United States on a mix of ovals, road courses and street circuits. It's a spec series, meaning every team runs the same Dallara chassis with engines leased from either Chevrolet or Honda. That spec element is important for sponsors because it means competitive performance is more evenly distributed than in F1. Your brand isn't automatically stuck on the back of the grid just because you picked the wrong team.

In 2024, IndyCar averaged 1.4 million viewers per race on NBC. The Indy 500 pulled 5.5 million viewers in the US alone, with an estimated 30 million watching globally. And with all 17 races moving to Fox for 2025, the series is getting its biggest media platform upgrade in history. For brands considering entry, the timing is actually quite interesting.

Here's where it gets properly variable. IndyCar sponsorship pricing spans an enormous range depending on what you want, which team you're talking to, and whether you're committing to a full season or dipping your toe in for a single race.

The broad brackets, based on industry reporting and team owner interviews:

Associate Sponsorship: $100,000 to $500,000 per season

This gets you smaller logo placement on the car, mentions in team communications, some hospitality allocation, and basic content rights. It's the entry point for brands testing whether American open-wheel racing delivers for them. At the lower end you might only appear on sidepods or rear wing endplates. At the upper end you're getting more prominent placement and better activation opportunities.

Primary Sponsorship: $500,000 to $5 million per season

This is where you start to own the livery. Primary sponsors typically get the dominant colour scheme on one car, extensive branding across team kit and transporters, premium hospitality packages, content rights, and the kind of visibility that actually moves the needle for brand recognition. Most serious commercial programmes sit in this bracket.

Title Sponsorship: $5 million+ per season

Title sponsors get their name on the team itself. Think Target Chip Ganassi Racing or the old Marlboro Team Penske arrangement. At this level you're essentially co-branding with the team across everything they do, on and off track. The investment is substantial but so is the integration.

Single Race Sponsorship: Variable

IndyCar has a culture of livery changes that's quite different from F1 or BTCC. It's common for five or more cars to show up at any given race with a different livery to the week before. The Indy 500 is particularly notable for this, with teams running special one-off liveries for their biggest sponsors. This creates genuine opportunities for brands who can't commit to a full season but want the exposure of a specific marquee event.

Here's the reality that team owners won't volunteer in their first meeting with you: IndyCar team budgets have spiralled. According to RACER's reporting from multiple team owners, budgets increased 20 to 25 percent in 2024 alone, with one team reporting increases beyond 40 percent.

The average cost to field a single car for a full IndyCar season now sits between $8 million and $10 million. Top teams are pushing toward $13 million per car. For context, engine leases alone cost over $1.5 million per car per year, and the introduction of hybrid powertrains has added significant cost across the board.

Driver salaries have also escalated dramatically. Where $1.5 million once secured serious talent, the market has reset upward. Some drivers now command $3 million to $7 million per season. This has created a situation where many teams rely on pay drivers who bring personal sponsorship, or who pay seven-figure sums themselves just to compete. Sound familiar? It should. The same thing happens in BTCC, F4, and pretty much every other series on earth.

What this means for sponsors is that teams genuinely need your money. That's actually a good negotiating position to be in, provided you know what to ask for.

This is the bit that makes IndyCar genuinely unique from a sponsorship perspective, and it's something UK brands often don't appreciate until they see it in action.

In F1 and BTCC, liveries are relatively fixed. A team runs the same colours all season, maybe with minor variations. In IndyCar, sponsors frequently dictate the entire colour scheme of individual cars, and those schemes change race to race. Each car on a multi-car team can look completely different because each driver has their own primary sponsor.

The result is that IndyCar liveries have become genuinely iconic in American motorsport culture. The Pennzoil "Yellow Submarine" on Penske. The Marlboro red and white that Rick Mears and Emerson Fittipaldi made famous through two decades. Target's red bullseye on Chip Ganassi's cars with Dario Franchitti. Bobby Rahal's Miller High Life gold and white. Al Unser Jr. in the Valvoline car winning the closest Indy 500 in history by 0.043 seconds in 1992.

These aren't just paint jobs. They're brand partnerships that have entered the cultural memory of American motorsport. When done well, the livery becomes inseparable from the racing. That's the kind of association money genuinely can't buy through conventional advertising.

You cannot discuss IndyCar sponsorship without talking about Indianapolis. The Indy 500 is the single biggest one-day sporting event in the world by attendance. Over 300,000 people pack the Indianapolis Motor Speedway every May. The race has been running since 1911. It carries a cultural weight in America that's difficult to overstate.

For sponsors, the Indy 500 represents a disproportionate chunk of the series' total value. Some brands sponsor exclusively for this one race, and the economics work because the media exposure is so concentrated. The race purse alone was $13 million in recent years, with the winner's share exceeding $1 million.

If you're a UK brand with American market ambitions, the Indy 500 is probably the single most efficient entry point into American motorsport sponsorship. One race, massive exposure, iconic venue, global broadcast reach.

IndyCar currently races the Dallara DW12 chassis, which has been in service since 2012. That's 14 years with the same basic car. The replacement, designated IR-28, was originally planned for 2027 but has been pushed back to 2028 due to costs estimated at $25 to $30 million for the overhaul programme.

Teams are budgeting upward of $1 million per car for the new chassis alone, and all existing DW12 inventory becomes essentially worthless overnight. The Leaders Circle programme, which guarantees prize money to chartered entries, has been increased to $1.645 million per entry for 2026 through 2028 to help offset these costs.

For sponsors, this transition represents both risk and opportunity. Teams will need additional funding to manage the changeover, which means better deals are available for brands willing to commit through the transition period. Conversely, the new car should generate renewed media interest and fan excitement, making 2028 and beyond potentially more valuable.

If you're weighing up where to put your motorsport sponsorship budget, here's how IndyCar sits relative to the other series we cover:

BTCC: £5,000 to £500,000+. UK focused, strong ITV coverage around 10 million cumulative viewers, excellent hospitality. Best for brands targeting the UK market specifically.

F1: £200,000 to £50 million+. Global reach but eye-watering costs. The licensing angle can work for smaller brands.

F4 British Championship: £2,000 to £80,000. Junior formula, great for brands wanting to back emerging talent at accessible prices.

WEC/Endurance Racing: £15,000 to £2 million+. Le Mans focused, premium demographic, 24-hour exposure events.

NASCAR: $75,000 per race to $35 million a season. Massive American audience, truck-to-Cup ladder, livery-centric culture similar to IndyCar.

IndyCar: $100,000 to $5 million+. American open-wheel prestige, the Indy 500 as a tentpole event, evolving media platform with Fox deal.

The right choice depends entirely on your target audience, budget and commercial objectives. There's no universal answer, which is exactly why we spend time understanding what a brand actually wants to achieve before recommending a series.

We don't pretend to be an American agency. What we are is a UK motorsport marketing agency with 30 years of sponsorship experience across multiple series, a proven track record of raising over £30 million in deals, and the network to make introductions that matter.

For UK brands looking at IndyCar, we provide sponsorship strategy and opportunity assessment, team and driver matchmaking based on your commercial objectives, deal negotiation and contract review, activation planning to ensure you actually get value from the investment, and content production to make the sponsorship work across your own marketing channels.

We also produce content for teams and drivers that helps them attract and retain sponsors, so we understand both sides of the table.

Whether IndyCar is right for you depends on what you're trying to achieve. We'll tell you honestly if another series would deliver better results for your budget. That's kind of our thing.