“World Cup Was Waiting on Us”- IndyCar President Tries To Save Face After Nashville Strategy Backlash

Sunday turned into a crowded day for motorsports and soccer. While IndyCar raced in Nashville, the FIFA World Cup final was still running on FOX, and that overlap left some fans frustrated when the race coverage was delayed.

Doug Boles said Fox had to juggle two live events at once, and the delay was shaped by both the World Cup and the weather. He said the network stayed with soccer as long as it could before switching back to IndyCar.

The IndyCar president praised Fox Sports for handling the situation

Boles told the Gluckcast podcast, “Fox has been an amazing partner for IndyCar. We’re in the second year of that, and they are helping us figure out how to grow. With the world championship in terms of soccer, we actually had a lightning delay before the game actually ended. Once the game ended, the plan was, 20 minutes after the end of the game, they were going to come to IndyCar.

Well, we had a lightning delay, then we had another lightning delay, and another lightning delay. Fox came back to us and said, ‘Look, we’re going to stay on World Cup as long as we can stay on World Cup, until we can come back to racing.’ They wanted to come back to what our sport is, and on an oval, our sport is spectacular, and we knew it would be at Nashville. So a lot of you people gave us grief, and they said, ‘You waited on World Cup’. No, World Cup was waiting on us.”

Jun 7, 2026; Madison, Illinois, USA; Ed Carpenter Racing Alexander Rossi Alexander Rossi (20) enters turn three during the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway. Mandatory Credit: Joe Puetz-Imagn Images

Not a lot of fans were happy about the constant delays. Normally, Fox Sports gets a poor reputation in both IndyCar and NASCAR regarding its coverage of those sports. But Boles defended the media giant, praising how it handled both events. Boles was not just describing a scheduling quirk. He was pushing back on the idea that IndyCar had put the World Cup ahead of its own race, and that is why the title frames it as a move to save face.

Regardless, without nature’s interference, the race would have likely kicked off while the match was going on. As such, Fox Sports and IndyCar did a lot of coordinating so that the match could wrap up before the race began. During all this, IndyCar fans were not thrilled with Fox delaying coverage of the race. Nevertheless, Fox Sports kept delaying IndyCar coverage until the match finished and then the lightning delay was over. That way, IndyCar fans would not miss a single piece of action. The plan worked because Boles boasted of 2.9 million average viewership on that Sunday night.

Was NASCAR similarly affected by the World Cup final?

Meanwhile, at North Wilkesboro, there was no such interference from the weather gods. Fortunately for NASCAR fans, they had a better solution, as the start time was much later and would kick off long after the match. The WC Final match started about four hours before the Window World 450 race, so there was plenty of time for it to wrap up. That was all despite the match going into extra time and getting close to a penalty shootout.

Mercifully for NASCAR fans, Ferran Torres scored and ensured that a penalty shootout was avoided. Thus, NASCAR fans have plenty of time to build up to the Cup race at North Wilkesboro, which Joey Logano eventually won.

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