Indianapolis 500 Will Be Shown Live by ABC-TV
America’s premier auto racing event, the Indianapolis 500, will be televised live nationally for the first time next spring.
Roone Arledge, ABC-TV president, and Joseph Cloutier Sr., president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corp., made the joint announcement Monday in New York. Terms of the three-year contract, which will run through the 1988 race, were not revealed.
ABC, which began providing same-day, tape-delayed coverage in 1971, will provide approximately 4 1/2 hours of live coverage beginning at 8 a.m. (PDT) May 25. The network also will continue partial coverage of time trials, which determine the 33-car field.
More than 300,000 fans regularly attend the race, and reserved seats already are sold out for 1986--the earliest sellout in history.
ABC agreed to black out race coverage in Indiana, and Cloutier indicated that race officials will closely monitor the effect of the 1987 and 1988 telecasts on the live gate.
The race was shown live in theaters on closed circuit for several years before 1971, and, according to Cloutier, once was telecast live by an Indianapolis station.
ABC had seen a steady decline in its race ratings and had been pushing the track to allow live coverage for the last several years.
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