Photo credit: Indy NXT/Penske Entertainment

For just a bit, even the young drivers felt like stars.

Indy NXT’s television exposure will be unlike any the series has seen before in 2025, with a majority of races taking place on FOX Sports 1 and the others on their FOX Sports 2 channel. The move to network television comes following IndyCar’s previous deal elapsing with NBC.

And as part of the series’ content days, drivers got to film with the network and get a taste of the upcoming deal.

It only took a few hours of shooting broadcast segments with FOX Sports for Andretti’s Lochie Hughes to be impressed with the work of the series’ new broadcasters.

“It felt like a proper Hollywood movie set,” Hughes said. “And here we are, just these little race car drivers. It’s really cool.”

FOX Sports 1 will carry the first seven races of the season, kicking off when Indy NXT travels to the sunshine state for their annual opener on the Streets of St. Petersburg. Three of the first four Indy NXT races will air on the same days as IndyCar ones as well, with the IndyCar schedule being fully broadcasted on the main FOX network.

Racing on FOX is something that HMD Motorsports’s Hailie Deegan is used to, having competed in 2024 in the NASCAR Truck Series, a racing series where FOX owns the entire season’s broadcasting rights.

For her, working with FOX in the leadup to the season has become familiar.

“I knew a lot of the people there (and we did) a lot of the same shots that we would do on the NASCAR side,” Deegan said. “So it felt very at home for me.”

Deegan’s move to Indy NXT in 2025 was inspired by the television deal, as she said sponsors were more willing to buy into a move to the series. 

“I couldn’t run USF (Pro Championships) because no sponsor cares to pay for that when there’s not a great TV time package,” Deegan said. “So when you have a great TV package, like FOX, it makes it a lot easier to sell.”

For all returning drivers to Indy NXT, the move will give them a significantly larger platform of exposure in 2025. Peacock’s 36 million subscribers is towered over by the 72.4 million households that receive FOX Sports 1 as a television channel. 

While FOX has faced criticism for the quality of their NASCAR coverage in the past few years, especially at lower levels of racing, Indy NXT drivers remained focused on the exciting prospect of tapping into the large-scale audience that can come compared to having no TV deal.

“That’s the kind of validation that I think IndyCar needed to some extent,” second-year driver Jack William Miller said. “I feel like FOX and IndyCar and also Indy NXT align with each other, and I think (FOX) will do a really good job with that.”

It is not just races that will have the privilege of being aired on television as well, with practice and qualifying sessions during the season to be split between FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2.

The first race of the 2025 Indy NXT season will air on March 2nd at 10 a.m. Eastern time from the Streets of St. Petersburg on FOX Sports 1.