Gainbridge signs multi-year extension as Indy 500's presenting sponsor

INDIANAPOLIS – It all goes back to a golf tournament that’s no longer in Indianapolis and a driver who no longer races in the IndyCar series. But from those two key building blocks, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has cultivated another long-term partner that’s quickly becoming a staple in the local sports market.

On Wednesday, Penske Entertainment Corp., which owns IMS and the IndyCar series, and Gainbridge announced a new multi-year extension for the latter to remain the presenting sponsor of the Indianapolis 500 days before the Racing Capital of the World welcomes back nearly a full-house of fans for the first time in three years. The deal marks Penske Entertainment’s third major renewal of IndyCar and IMS’s three most important partners — series title-sponsor NTT, broadcast partner NBC and 500 presenting sponsor Gainbridge — since Roger Penske bought the track and the series less than three years ago.

“At some level, it’s an endorsement of the property, which in this case is us,” Miles told IndyStar. “But these relationships extend if there’s value for both parties, and it’s important to know what the sponsor is looking for in the beginning so you can both evaluate whether there is long-term potential.”

The pair’s original deal was struck in 2019, and though both sides declined to reveal the length of the extension that starts in 2023, both also made it clear there’s no reason to think the union shouldn’t last for quite some time.

“It starts with the event. It’s a tremendous event, and we’ve seen the energy continue to build off the 100th running,” said Dan Towriss, the CEO of Group 1001, Gainbridge’s parent company. “It gives us the opportunity to create content and experiences for our guests which are top-notch.

“You have to put work into it. If you just want to show up and expect something to just deliver its value, it may not happen, but it’s our view that if you jump in and invest, we give ourselves every opportunity to realize what we were hoping the partnership would be four years ago. And it’s delivered.”

Towriss, a Muncie-native and Ball State grad whose company is based in Indianapolis, approached then-Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard for advice on leveraging a local event or two to boost the visibility of his burgeoning online financial products and services platform.

More about Gainbridge and its growing visibility in Indianapolis:

• Gainbridge's name is now on the fieldhouse. But what does the company do?

• How a pastor played a part in Zach Veach's IndyCar deal with Andretti Autosport

• From 2019: Gainbridge strikes 4-year deal to become presenting sponsor for Indy 500

“And we needed to do more than sponsor the reading hour at the local library,” Towriss told IndyStar. “But I didn’t want to create something either. It was, ‘What can we make better?’”

What came of that was a ‘women in tech’ initiative named the Indy Women in Tech Foundation that lent support anywhere from young girls diving into robotics to women trying to find their way back into the workforce. Soon, they became the title sponsor for the LPGA's event at Brickyard Crossing in 2017.

“Then we got to thinking, ‘We’re on the Brickyard course, but what can we do to connect that with what we’re doing from a golf standpoint to the race?’” Towriss said.

Around that same time, as the legend goes, then-prospective IndyCar driver Zach Veach was looking for a way to break into the biggest race in the world as a one-off driver, and he’d gone to his pastor at Traders Point Christian Church looking to, of all things, network. He’d finished 3rd in Indy Lights in 2014 and 4th in 2016, and early in 2017, he made his series debut with Ed Carpenter Racing at Barber Motorsports Park, but without a truly star-studded resume, he lacked the necessary funding required to land a ride.

His pastor gave him Towriss’s name and email address and said to mention their conversation.

“And I started out the call with this: ‘We don’t sponsor race cars and we don’t sponsor racing events, but tell me your story,’” Towriss said. “And I liked his story. Within a weekend, it was, ‘Hey what if the golf event was the sponsor of the car?’ And that’s how, for the first 500, it was the ‘Indy Women in Tech Championship presented by Guggenheim’ race car.”

From there, Veach, Towriss and Andretti Autosport struck up a three-year deal, where in 2018, Group 1001 was the primary sponsor of the No. 26 Honda before it switched to Gainbridge in 2019 – the year the company also latched onto the 500. Though Veach and Andretti parted ways at the end of the 2020 IndyCar season, title contender Colton Herta slid into the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda for 2021. Just over a year ago, the then-21-year-old announced a two-year contract extension with Andretti, and since then, Andretti has been making a push toward entrance into Formula 1 via a brand-new team named Andretti Global.

Along with Michael Andretti, Towriss is personally involved in that endeavor, as is Group 1001 Capital, a private investing arm that, though distinct and separate from the insurance and annuity sales company of Gainbridge, could provide potential branding and name recognition opportunities for Gainbridge down the road – should Towriss and Andretti’s patient work persuading the FIA and Liberty Media prevail.

In the past year, Gainbridge has also landed the naming rights to the home arena of the NBA’s Indiana Pacers and WNBA’s Indiana Fever – the building formerly known as Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Earlier this month, Gainbridge also was a major sponsor with visible activation around F1’s Miami Grand Prix around Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

More: Pacers' home Bankers Life Fieldhouse has a new name

“I think when the name shows up in more places, we’re seeing more of a bounce around that and evidence of the awareness and credibility in the Gainbridge brand," Towriss said. “We have a few stories where we’ve had large contracts purchased online, and they say they heard about (Gainbridge) from the Indy 500. We watch the numbers from that and see spikes around the (500) or when Colton Herta wins. That certainly drives business, and we’ve also had business deals that have been cultivated by just being at the track as well.”

In particular, Towriss said that Group 1001 now does business with Gallagher, who used to be featured as the primary sponsor on Carlin’s No. 59 Chevy and is now an IMS partner. As he explained, while the products of many companies in the financial services space are sold through independent representatives, Gainbridge is more “direct to consumer,” so activation around sponsorships with the 500, the LPGA or an NBA/WNBA arena (that also is an active concert and entertainment venue) is vital to the company’s growth.

And the more big-name partners that Gainbridge aligns with adds exponential growth to the company’s visibility and cache among potential clients.

In that endeavor, Miles explained how, leading into last year’s IndyCar debut on the streets of Nashville via the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, Gainbridge spearheaded a fan experience event at the city’s iconic Bell Tower that featured various country music acts that built up to a set from Thomas Rhett. The impetus centered on Towriss’s idea that, “We think by investing in IndyCar, it makes this sponsorship more valuable.”

Said Miles, “I think we both think of our organizations as corporate citizens as much as for-profit businesses, and Dan has shown he has a great skillset of combining good things, whether it’s through not-for-profit charitable activities or just being supportive in the community. As they’ve invested more broadly, I think everything comes together to give Gainbridge a brand stature and make it an accepted part of this community.”

Email IndyStar motor sports reporter Nathan Brown at nlbrown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @By_NathanBrown.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis 500 sponsor Gainbridge extends deal with Motor Speedway