Indy 500 blackout: Can you watch the race live on Peacock or local tv this year?

Nathan Brown and Dana Hunsinger Benbow, Indianapolis Star
·3 min read
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UPDATE: Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced Friday that the race will be blacked out on traditional TV but you can watch it through the Peacock streaming service. Click on the links below for more information on the decision and for instructions on downloading the app.

More: IMS confirms Central Indiana Indy 500 fans will be able to watch race live on Peacock

More: Local Indy 500 fans: Here's how you can subscribe to Peacock to watch the race live Sunday

PREVIOUS: Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Doug Boles said earlier this month that the track doesn't expect to sell out its roughly 240,000 reserve grandstand seats for the 2022 Indianapolis 500 meaning it's all but certain there will be another local blackout of the race's live broadcast.

As has been the case for years, folks within a sizable radius of IMS will have to wait for the tape-delayed broadcast of the race that will air on NBC later Sunday evening, rather than being able to watch the race live when the green flag drops around 12:30 p.m.

"The blackout happens exactly why people think," Dom Caristi, a professor of telecommunications at Ball State University, told IndyStar in 2020. "They would have a harder time selling tickets if people locally were able to watch the race live. It's really that simple."

How to watch Indy 500: Here's the 2022 IndyCar schedule and broadcast start times

In 105 races since 1911, only five times —1949, 1950, 2016, 2020 and 2021 — were people in the city able to watch the Indy 500 on live TV in Indianapolis. That's despite drawing crowds of more than 300,000 fans from 1976-95 and 2001-02. This year's race could also top 300,000 fans.

The 100th Indy 500 sold out in 2016, no fans were allowed to attend due to COVID-19 in 2020 and the track sold the 135,000 tickets it was limited to last year due to the pandemic. But the blackout is expected to return this year.

A young fan watches as Ed Carpenter Racing driver Rinus VeeKay (21) makes his way around the track Sunday, May 22, 2022, during the second day of qualifying for the 106th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
A young fan watches as Ed Carpenter Racing driver Rinus VeeKay (21) makes his way around the track Sunday, May 22, 2022, during the second day of qualifying for the 106th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Will Indy 500 will be on Peacock live in Indianapolis?

Boles said there isn’t clarity whether central Indiana race fans who have purchased a Peacock Premium subscription through NBC will be able to watch the race live, either. The platform was billed as an avenue for cord cutters to watch all 17 IndyCar races live in 2022 and beyond. At the time, it wasn’t made clear whether fans who live close to IMS would be barred from watching the 500 live, as has been the case for quite some time when there wasn’t a sellout or a pandemic restricting attendance.

More: The saga of the Indy 500 TV blackout and its fascinating, quirky stronghold

As of May 13, Boles said more than 90% of the track’s permanent seating is sold-out, including all of the track’s suites. For comparison, IMS announced May 6 in 2016 that all of the track’s reserved seats were sold out, and the track halted general admission ticket sales May 25 (the Wednesday of race week), lifting the local blackout for the first time since 1950.

“I think we’ll be really close to selling out reserved seats. I don’t think we’ll get there, but we’ll be close,” Boles told IndyStar earlier this month. “GA is still going to be a big crowd, but not like 2016 because that year, for a month, if people wanted to come to the race, (buying a GA ticket) was their only choice.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Will the Indy 500 be blacked out in 2022? Here's what seems likely.