The morning of the ultimate full day of apply for the 2026 Indianapolis 500, I used to be standing on a golf course watching the manufacturing crew from courageous the unseasonal Could chill to seize photographs of Mick Schumacher, Scott McLaughlin, and Graham Rahal making an attempt to make a putt surrounded by about 100 golf carts and probably the most well-known race monitor in America.
Sure, Shadow Lion, Tom Brady’s manufacturing firm, discovered itself with a number of digicam operators, manufacturing assistants, and administrators calling filming angles on a golf course within Indianapolis Motor Speedway -all in service of IndyCar drivers making an attempt to play a special sport.
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It is a type of moments that you just wish to textual content your folks, “you may by no means imagine what I am doing proper now,” and it makes you assume… That is what it appears like when a sport decides that it is accomplished with backseat driving its personal development.
It is the vitality behind Fox Sports activities’ second yr with IndyCar – and the beginning of ”.
The IndyCar Present You Did not Know You Wanted
It is price noting what got here earlier than. IndyCar has tried this type of storytelling up to now with the 100 Days to Indy docuseries. It had the correct concept, however restricted attain and manufacturing sources to again it up.
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For those who watched it? Nice. Most racing followers did not realize it existed. This isn’t a knock to the collection, however the actuality of discovering actually invested companions, platforms, and finances to inform their story correctly.
Mar 1, 2026; St. Petersburg, Florida, USA; Crew Penske driver Scott McLaughlin (3) leads the pack in the course of the NTT Indycar Collection on the Firestone Grand Prix on the Streets of St. Petersburg. Necessary Credit score: Russell Lansford-Imagn Pictures | Russell Lansford-Imagn Pictures
All In: IndyCar launched on March 19, 2026, dropping its first episode simply days after the season-opener in St. Petersburg. Every episode sits at a digestible chew of 15 to twenty minutes and is free on YouTube, with a blistering 1-2 week turnaround.
It follows a single driver – their story, their background, a related storyline to the weekend – and does one thing that IndyCar desperately wants proper now: Makes the drivers accessible in probably the most literal sense of the phrase.
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The collection is a joint manufacturing between Fox Sports activities and Shadow Lion, the artistic studio co-founded by Tom Brady, directed by Matthew Maxson, and Ryan Lohuis. Government producers embody Fox Sports activities CEO Eric Shanks and Brad Zager, alongside IndyCar’s Alex Damron and Mackenzie Williams, and Shadow Lion’s Gilad Haas, Jeff Advantageous, and Philip Byron.
Could 23, 2025; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Common view of an IndyCar on Fox emblem with followers in the principle grandstands throughout closing apply on Carb Day for the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Necessary Credit score: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Pictures | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Pictures
The lengthy and the wanting it? Fox is taking IndyCar severely. The community acquired a one-third stake in IndyCar for $125 million and subsequently invested in Shadow Lion as effectively. These investments imply that All In is not only a advertising and marketing play, however a literal infrastructure for the collection and the community.
Storytelling in IndyCar is Pressing
To grasp why this present exists, it’s important to zoom in to viewership stats since IndyCar moved to Fox Sports activities in 2025.
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Let us take a look at a number of the :
27% enhance in viewership from 2024 to 2025 (1.362 million avg. viewers)
Younger demographics surged with an 81% enhance in ages 18-34 and a 72% enhance within the feminine demographic, as effectively
Amongst sports activities averaging not less than 1 million viewers, IndyCar had the most important year-over-year development
… and this was simply in 2025. The 2026 season continued this trajectory. The primary 3 races of the season, Fox averaged 1.328 million viewers -hitting over 1 million, constantly, for the primary time since 2008. It is a 48% enhance over 2025.
IndyCar Grand Prix of Arlington Rendering | Courtesy of Go to Arlington
By each metric, that is one of the best begin to an IndyCar season in a long time. That momentum saved rising because the races ticked on. All of which makes All In each well timed and intentional. You construct momentum with nice racing and use human storytelling to hook up with between the race weekends.
Buxton Emphasised that ‘We Must Inform Their Tales’
I sat down with a number of the Fox Crew prematurely of the five hundred weekend and frolicked with the Shadow Lion group. Specifically, Will Buxton – Fox Sports activities’ play-by-play voice for IndyCar and the motorsports storyteller of this present era of motorsports.
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What makes Buxton’s perspective attention-grabbing is that in a race week, he’s in his ingredient by merely speaking. It is actually his job to talk, and in talking, craft a narrative to make you are feeling issues, visualize your self on that monitor in ‘actual time’.
Will Buxton Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe Fox Sports activities IndyCar Broadcast | Penske Leisure by: Chris Owens
On All In, Buxton is likely one of the acquainted faces who seems in episodes, explaining the game to a viewer who could also be encountering IndyCar for the primary time. He is aware of this territory effectively. He is been doing it on Drive to Survive for years.
“We have to inform the tales of our drivers extra. We have to get folks to care about them. We now have 25 drivers week in, week out. We now have 33 right here for the Indianapolis 500. Each one in every of them has a novel story. Each one in every of them has a novel aim as a result of not each one in every of these drivers is aiming for a race win or a title. A few of them wish to end. A few of them must safe funding for subsequent yr. Each one in every of them has a special story.”Will Buxton, Fox Sports activities
That is the core premise of All In in a sentence. Individuals. Drivers. Stakes that really feel human, even when the setting includes vehicles going 230 miles an hour.
All In Shadow Lion Studio at IMS Pagoda with Felix Rosenqvist | Grand Prix on SI
After I sat in on interviews with Shadow Lion – in a jerry-rigged studio on the high of the IMS Pagoda – listening to Maxson craft tales as he interviewed Barry Wanser, Felix Rosenqvist, AJ Foyt, and extra, this human ingredient Buxton references felt tangible.
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What ‘Actual Time’ Means for the Followers
Buxton pointed to System 1 as proof of idea, naturally. Drive to Survive created an ‘accessible’ driver universe the place followers really feel so deeply related to the persona of drivers alongside their racecraft. When that is accomplished correctly? Buxton says ‘fanaticism round drivers’ will undergo the roof.
“Drivers are our most marketable property. We have to get them on the market so that individuals can root for them and might discover the personalities that they love. They may not essentially be the drivers who’re successful the races each weekend.”Will Buxton, Fox Sports activities
James Hinchcliffe – former IndyCar driver, present Fox Sports activities analyst alongside Buxton – put it extra merely than Buxton.
“This type of format and the method [of All In] being a bit bit shorter, a bit bit punchier, and simply simply accessible – is hopefully what is going on to get IndyCar and our guys in entrance of extra eyeballs.”James Hinchcliffe, Fox Sports activities
James Hinchcliffe 2013 IndyCar | Bryon Houlgrave/The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK through Imagn Pictures
Hinchcliffe is strictly proper. Drawing again to IndyCar’s former 100 Days to Indy present, one of many largest points wasn’t the storytelling; it was the dearth of entry. Hinch is aware of the viewers he is speaking about intimately… in spite of everything, he spent years of his life advertising and marketing himself on this very sport.
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As a driver, he sat throughout the desk from company sponsors who had no concept their firm was even in racing, educating rooms full of people that knew nothing about IndyCar however have been about to spend a cool $50,000 on him. That is not so completely different from what All In is attempting to do at scale.
That scale from the manufacturing facet was certainly fairly spectacular. The questions I had going into my day with Shadow Lion – and that Buxton additionally admitted to having when he first heard in regards to the present – have been logistical.
A present like Drive to Survive takes months. They movie the whole season and put it to use as a device to promote the following season. What are Fox Sports activities and Shadow Lion doing? Planning, filming, storytelling, enhancing, and releasing in a matter of days – a very completely different operational equation.
What I noticed was a group that arrives at each occasion figuring out who they’re following and roughly what story they’re attempting to inform. The Scott McLaughlin All In episode is one of the best instance of this, in response to Maxson.
The group got here to Barber planning to observe McLaughlin as a driver, doubtlessly stepping right into a management position on his group. Then he had a large accident. Instantly, the episode wasn’t about ambition and momentum, however household, hazard, and what it means to have a job that would take every part from you.
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The group pivoted, in Buxton’s phrases, “on a dime”, and what got here out the opposite facet was arguably one of the crucial human items of motorsport content material I’ve seen.
“That is uncommon,” Buxton added, however a present of this manufacturing worth with this tight turnaround is simply as uncommon.
What’s much more uncommon, in fact, is the story that they advised on the Indianapolis 500.
Felix Rosenqvist Indianapolis 500 Win with Borg Warner Trophy | Penske Leisure, Titus Slaughter
I sat in on Felix Rosenqvist’s interview days previous to . After listening to the questions and witnessing his win, all I may take into consideration was how fantastic this All In episode goes to be. In any case, Felix’s story is one that can make followers love him much more.
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The Driver is the Story
As one of many All In showrunners, Matthew Maxson was clear in regards to the philosophy of the present. Outcomes are adjoining and the story isn’t results-driven. Following a driver is not nearly who’s successful – in any other case Alex Palou could be almost each episode. It is about who has one thing taking place of their life, who has a storyline with actual curiosity.
A brand new dad – Felix Rosenqvist or Scott McLaughlin. A driver with a serious group change – Will Energy. A . Efficiency is a chunk of the story, however it isn’t the complete story, and never as vital because the human being within the automotive.
“It is a single POV lens on a given weekend. I feel that is what makes this present cool and why folks reply to it.”Matthew Maxson, All In Showrunner
Barry Wanser appears out from Chip Ganassi Racing driver Alex Palou’s (10) pit field Saturday, Could 9, 2026, throughout qualifying for the Sonsio Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. | Kristin Enzor/For IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK through Imagn Pictures
The driving ethos was clear within the conversations Maxson and group had with Rosenqvist and Palou’s strategist, Barry Wanser. Did they ask about outcomes? Sure, however extra importantly, they dug into emotions, feelings, and thought processes behind selections.
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Not coincidentally, that is what Drive to Survive found out and why all sports activities storytelling will proceed to reference their formulation that made F1 a cultural phenomenon. Make it comprehensible. Make it relatable. Make it really feel like one thing price caring about when the inexperienced flag drops.
The main distinction is that All In doubles down on what Drive to Survive solely often does – centering the driving force as a human being fully. Who they’re. Why they do that. What they’re risking each single weekend.
“In the end, racing drivers for me have all the time been gods. However when it comes right down to it, they’re flesh and bone. To see how they tick, what they undergo, meet their households – it personalizes these unbelievable heroes who can typically really feel a step eliminated.”Will Buxton, Fox Sports activities
Indianapolis 500 Grid | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Pictures
The present is free. It is on YouTube. It is beneath an hour. There’s genuinely no barrier to entry. That is the entire level.
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As Buxton put it, these drivers are superhuman, however they’re nonetheless human. The group making All In understands that the fan who must be received over would not essentially want technique breakdowns or lap instances – they want a cause to care in regards to the particular person within the automotive.
That is the job. From what I noticed on the Indianapolis 500 , they’re superb at it.
This text was initially revealed on www.si.com/onsi/f1 as .
