Indianapolis 500 Sponsorship History
The sponsor is what every Indycar team needs run the Indianapolis 500, or to fund their whole season. A guestimate to run the Indy 500 alone is around a million dollars. A full season is, at minimum, $10 million or more. The definition of sponsor is as follows. “an individual or organization that pays some or all of the costs involved in staging a sporting or artistic event in return for advertising”.
There have been various sponsors thoughout the years at the Indianapolis 500. There have been the oddities such as NFLteams (The Atlanta Falcons), movies (Ghostbusters II as well as Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), band leaders (Spike Jones), rock bands (Aerosmith), and a daredevil (Evil Knievel). Most though have been car products, beer, and department stores. That has even changed over the past 30 years or so. Now fans see tech driven companies on the sidepods in the NTT DATA Indycar Series. The series sponsor alone reflects that.
I did some research in the 1946 published Floyd Clymer Indianapolis 500 Yearbook that covered the races from 1911-1941. I also used a 1997 500-Mile Race Record Book produced by the then Indianapolis Star/News. The findings were quite interesting.
Most entries were by individuals or car manufacturers in the early years of the “500” Mile Sweepstakes. The first company sponsored entry was in 1914. A Duesenburg powered Mulford driven by Billy Chandler. He would start fourth and finish 21st out of 30 entries falling out after 69 laps due to a connecting rod problem. The entry listed as the Braender Bulldog. It was sponsored by the Braender Bulldog company out of East Rutherford, New Jersey. The company, started by real estate developer Philip Braender manufactured tires. There is not a lot written about the entry, but Braender Bulldog originally sponsored Ralph DePalma for the race. He withdrew his entry after qualifying due to vibration issues.
The first company sponsor to show up on the side of an Indianapolis 500 winning car came in 1929. Ray Keech took the Simplex Piston Ring Miller to victory lane that year.The next would come in 1931 with Louis Schneider in the Bowes Sealfast Special which sponsored cars clear into the late 1960’s.
Car products were the sponsor norm from the 1930’s into the 1960’s as well. Famous brands such as Noc-Out Hose Clamps, Blue Crown Spark Plugs, Burd Piston Rings, Wynn’s Friction Proofing, Bardahl, Belond Exhaust, D-A Lubricant, STP as well as Sears all showed out at The Brickyard. That doesn’t include all the tire manufacturers.
Steel companies, soft drinks, motor oils, moving companies, they all became prevalant throughout the years. However, there were still many self sponsored cars as the 1970’s & 1980’s rolled around. A.J. Foyt’s winner in 1977 is the last entry found to be self sponsored. Listed only as the Gilmore Racing Special.
Sponsors of everyday products were the norm by the mid to late 1980’s and into the mid 1990’s. Tobacco, beer companies, motor oil, rental car companies, pizza places and fast food companies were all buying real estate to be a part of the biggest race in the world. While Sears, known for their automobile department, had sponsored cars in the 60’s, as well as Ayr-Way in the 70’s it was the big box stores of K-Mart and Target that showed up in the 80’s and 90’s. Companies & products that catered to the everyday consumer, not just motorheads. These sponsors created amazing looking liveries as well.
The big sponsors left in droves during the early years of the CART/IRL split. This made race teams to get creative with dot com and telecom companies to list a few. Some sponsors returned at the turn of the century, Target & Marlboro among them, but tobacco companies could no longer advertise per government regulations. While Pennzoil hung around and is still around to this day there aren’t many every day consumer products sponsoring cars.
Most sponsors in the Indianapolis 500 today are companies that aren’t well known, but trying to grow their audience via the “500”. Companies such as Arrow, Velo, Kulr, Bitnile, Sodexo, Root and Biohaven are just a few that showed up on the 2023 grid. Will these companies be “of the norm” in the future? What will sponsors look like 20 years from now? Will consumer products make a comeback or will it strictly be tech companies? To quote Al Unser Sr. “I don’t know”.