The IndyCar Series landed perhaps its biggest catch under the Penske Entertainment era after announcing a return to Texas with a race on the streets of Arlington in 2026.
The significance of the announcement was in the partnerships formed, with Penske Entertainment teaming up with the National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys and REV Entertainment, the official events partner of Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers.
A 14-turn, 2.73-mile circuit will weave around AT&T Stadium and Globe Life Field, which serve as the respective homes of the Cowboys and Rangers, and through the entertainment district of a city that sells 1.6 million tickets to spectators for various events annually.
Mark Miles, the president and CEO of Penske Entertainment, which owns the IndyCar Series, sat down with Motorsport.com to discuss the event and the strategy of the series moving forward, as well as how new broadcast partner FOX Sports will factor in.
Let’s get the hard question out of the way first: There are people asking why this couldn’t work at Texas Motor Speedway, and why IndyCar is headed to Arlington?
Mark Miles: Well, I guess the first thing is, as everybody I think knows, we really haven't had success lately in finding a date that was going to be reliable over time, and that's important to us. That created the opportunity to think about it because we definitely wanted to be in North Texas. And then for some time we've had a dialogue — and for a shorter time, but several months, we've had a lot of work between our team and the Cowboys and the Rangers to explore the possibilities. I think [the announcement] does speak for itself. We've been articulating an event strategy for some time, which is that number one, we are not walking away from the desire to have a good mix of the various formats of races for us; that includes, of course, ovals and temporary street races and road courses.
So, that's first, and this doesn't represent any distance between that philosophy and the announcement. Then we've also said we want to look for high impact opportunities to be in hot growing markets and to approach them in two different ways. One is where we have become the promoter. By '26, that will be the case for the two IndyCar races in Indy, in Detroit, for the race or races in Iowa, [and] Milwaukee. Now, through this partnership, we're part of the promoter group for Arlington — and I think there'll be one or two more examples of that by 2026, if not before. And we think that's important, both in terms of the markets and our ability to really control the effort to upgrade our events.
We want to do that by taking control of more races ourselves and also by looking for opportunities for high level partners. What could be a higher level opportunity, in that regard, than the Cowboys and the Rangers in Arlington at that facility? I hope that everybody gets a chance to look at the video that was done to portray how the racetrack will look. I think it is going to be a great racetrack. We’ve got great partners. We’ve got time to do it right in the first installment for ‘26 in the spring. This is, kind of, the very first conspicuous example of that part of the event strategy. And again, I think there’ll be more as time goes forward. I also want to say that this does not represent walking away from our philosophy of having a healthy mix of three formats of racing for IndyCar. It doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to have third party promoters as we do now. We’re just going to be opportunistic to look for events we can run ourselves and for opportunities to have high level partnerships within the promotion of our events.
The magnitude of taking IndyCar to a level of involvement with major teams such as the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers was certainly felt at the track unveiling at Texas Live! on Tuesday. Talking with Santino Ferrucci, Alex Palou, and Josef Newgarden, there was a big-fight feel to this that really had them buzzing in a way that made this feel like it rivals Formula 1’s Miami Grand Prix. What kind of stratosphere do you think this raises IndyCar to?
MM: Yeah, we think IndyCar deserves to be understood to be a major league sport, and I think sometimes you are judged by the company you keep. That’s another way to emphasize the strategy of looking for these kinds of high level partnerships. By the way, just related to promoting events, but also in upgrading other things we do, like marketing, communications, and hospitality. There are all kinds of partners out there that are very capable, very much major league and we’ll continue to be very selective, but look for those opportunities in those and other functions of putting on big events to up our game and show everybody IndyCar’s major league sport.
What went into the details of the track layout?
MM: Well, it took a lot of work. Tony Cotman is the lead for us in designing tracks, but he has two roles for us: One is always looking at where we race to make sure that they're safe, but also good racing and his other function is to help design them. We had this fabulous opportunity to basically take a white canvas. The entertainment district there is just a huge opportunity to put our best foot forward in the way we race. We could look at that whole space. It doesn't have many of the complications or challenges that street races can have when you're right in the middle of a downtown and it's a lot of area that even things like the streetlights that are in the parking lots tend to be further apart than in a lot of places, which is useful.
“We could see how we could have a nine-tenths of a mile straightaway, which obviously gets us up, we think, 200-plus miles per hour. That's a big part of our speed, obviously a big part of our racing and our brand that then immediately goes into a hard right-hand turn and we could engineer a track accordingly. It's also wide. There are a couple places where we're still working on how wide it can be, but a good example of the width is that straightaway. So, it was kind of a blank canvas and Tony and our team, people like Michael Montri, who have the experience of laying out that track in Detroit and elsewhere, could really go to town and make the most of the real estate that's there.
When you have massive partners that are a part of something like this, I think the biggest curiosity is the promotional element. With that, what kind of activations - and we’ve heard rumblings FOX could be promoting it as early as this weekend’s NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions - should be anticipated?
MM: Well, FOX has a deep relationship with both our partner organizations and they’re absolutely all-in and supportive of this innovation for us. But also, I think the two organizations and their sort of assets, along with our ability to provide focus through the creation of the grand prix committee that will be focused all the time on just that, is potent. So, Bill Miller (President of the Grand Prix of Arlington) will be putting together the team. It will be small, but waking up every morning thinking about the grand prix there. But we also have these great relationships with the Cowboys and the Rangers and their sponsor lists, those relationships, their suite customers, their season ticket customers, their club customers, and that’s a pretty amazing base from which to go out and start to sell. So, we’ll have the focus of a dedicated staff right there in Dallas, with obviously the full cooperation of the Cowboys and the Rangers. I think that it’s just a remarkable constellation of assets that we hope to make the most of.
Does announcing this event, with the possibility of other event announcements looming, alter the expectation for the number of races on the new FOX deal? Can the number grow to, say 20, or is there a cap limit to the number of races that can be broadcast, per se?
MM: Our agreement with FOX calls for us to provide them 17 races that are championship races in the normal season as it's structured now. And we like the number 17, that's why it's in our agreement with FOX. It's not a limit. It's what we expect to do. But whether it's for us and the owners and the drivers or for FOX or our sponsors, we see another great opportunity, I think we'll pursue it. If that means one less doubleheader or some other adjustment on the calendar, we'll take things case by case and and act accordingly. I don't think people should look at us as having an ambition to get to 20, for example, which is kind of implicit in your question. Seventeen is, we think the sweet spot, but we've talked about it and if there's such a thing as another Arlington out there, and that means all things considered looking at all the races on the calendar, the best thing to do to go is to go to 18, then we'll look at that. But there are probably ways even in the short term to add and still stay at about 17.
Do you anticipate, whether it is next year or in 2026, FOX Deportes for the entire schedule or a select number of races to help generate interest of the Hispanic audience whether in this southern region of the United States, Mexico, etc.?
MM: Well, the opportunity to reach more Hispanic fans and make more Hispanic fans is important to us and our partners in Arlington vis-a-vis FOX. FOX Deportes is contractually committed to take three races. The plan is the first race of the season, St. Pete, the Indy 500 and the finale, but that's not a cap either. That's really a minimum. And as we get closer to making the '26 schedule and Deportes sees how they do with the three races that they'll have next year, I think it's entirely possible that they would add events. And given the importance of Hispanic population in that market in North Texas, it's an obvious place to look. But it's not just about FOX. In talking with [Dallas Cowboys' owner] Jerry Jones [on Tuesday], he was telling us about how important marketing to Hispanic people is.
He told us about the tours he’s done in Mexico to do earned media events and to publicize the Cowboys in Mexico itself, not just the southern part of the United States. And that’s music to our ears. We talked to him about Pato [O’Ward] and how he’s a natural star and how he would be happy to be engaged in this event and do all he can, as he did at Texas Motor Speedway to help promote and grow the event. I don’t want to say too much about it, but it’s conceivable that we could end up with an event in Mexico in the next few years. And if we did that, it would certainly be in the spring. So, a connection between an event in Arlington and an event in Mexico would be a powerful opportunity to bridge and cross promote the various sports to the Hispanic fans just south of the border and in the southern United States. I think it’s a big opportunity for us, and the Cowboys and the Rangers see it as an opportunity for them, to strengthen our appeal to Hispanic fans.
