SPEEDWAY, Ind. – A national audience of football fans got a dose of the Indianapolis 500 this weekend.

On FOX NFL Sundays, host and Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Strahan announced he would be the honorary pace car driver for the 109th Indianapolis 500 in May.

Along with the announcement was a preview of the paint scheme for Will Power’s IndyCar and a look at a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Coup, the pace car for the Indy 500.

For the first time, the Indianapolis 500 and the entire NTT IndyCar series will be broadcast on FOX. IMS President Doug Boles was at the FOX studio in Los Angeles for Strahan’s announcement. Boles said such exposure helps the sport grow.

“To be able to do it with that platform of the over 15 million people who watch that show, and they talked about it at halftime of the afternoon game, so there’s another 20 million or so people who see the IndyCar brand, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway brand,” Boles said. “There is a lot of value in that.”

Strahan mused during the show about the speed of the Corvette ZR1 and how “it’s going to be hard to catch me.”

Boles said this is the second time they’ve tried to get Strahan behind the wheel of the pace car, but so far they haven’t been able to make the schedules work. Even this year, there were some initial questions about whether Strahan would even fit in the car.

Boles said they drove to Los Angeles last weekend to have Strahan tested.

“With the helmet on, he basically sits at the top of the car,” Boles said. “It wasn’t built for such tall football players, especially with a helmet on, but he fit in perfectly. We moved the seat back, as low as it could go.”

Monday marks six months before Strahan will lead the 33 drivers to start the 109th Indianapolis 500. Boles said it feels even closer.

“Once you get to January, you might as well be to May because it goes so fast,” Boles said.

The 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 ended at sunset on May 27 after race fans suffered a four-hour rain delay.

Boles said IMS was approaching a sell-off until the forecast came true.

“Day after day, going into May, we were selling more tickets than the year before and I had a feeling we would probably sell out the reserve tickets that Monday or Tuesday of race week,” Boles said. “And then the 10-day weather forecast came out and basically said 100% chance of a rain race weekend and you saw our ticket purchases drop.”

If reserve tickets sell out, this usually means the local TV blackout is lifted. Even without the sell-out, the decision was made to lift the blackout after the postponed race started.

Since the 100th edition of the historic race in 2016, there has not been a sold-out reserve ticket at IMS. Boles said they have kept up the momentum since then and have been able to increase attendance every year since the pandemic.

Right now, Boles says ticket sales are surpassing last year around the same time. The hope is for a sold-out reserve seat in 2025 and a lifting of the local blackout.

“One of those things I really want to do is sell this place out in a time that isn’t the 100th running of the Indy 500,” Boles said.