Fox Sports may best be known for showing National Football League match-ups and Major League Baseball games, but one major advertiser hopes the outlet gets some recognition for an unusual kind of dog race.
Oscar Meyer plans to launch a new “Wiener 500” as part of Fox Sports’ coverage of the Indianapolis 500, and hopes racing fans will go along for the ride. The contest has six Oscar Meyer Wienermobiles racing one another on the same track as the car-racing extravaganza. The contest will be streamed live on Friday, May 23 at 2 p.m. eastern on the Fox Sports app and across Fox Sports’ social-media accounts devoted to coverage of the race. Fox will also show highlights from the Wienermobile race during its pre-game show on the Fox broadcast network.
The Wienermobile race helps Oscar Mayer, “a way to really own the kickoff of summer and to make sure we are pushing our product to be top of mind for folks when they are thinking about firing up those grills,” says said Kelsey Rice, brand communications director for the meat company, which is part of Kraft Heinz, during an interview.
Oscar Mayer has advertised in sports programming in the past, even going so far as to sponsor the Super Bowl halftime show in 1996 and 1997. But the company has, like many of the nation’s consumer-products giants, traditionally put a significant chunk of its ad dollars into more typical media roosts like primetime TV shows. In the streaming era, however, sports programming has become increasingly important to marketers from all categories, eager to align their pitches in formats that continue to draw broad, simultaneous viewing. To do that, they must play a new game that makes them a bigger part of the community at the track or on the field.
“We want to show everyone that Oscar Mayer hot dogs for everyone, including sports fans,” says Rice. “So we wanted to show up in that space in an authentic way, in a way that feels real to them.” The executive declined to offer specifics about the brand’s relationship with Fox Sports, but indicated that the partnership includes paid advertising. Oscar Mayer also has a relationship with Indianapolis Motor Speedway that makes it the official hot dog of the 500.
Sports fans are getting hungrier for behind-the-scenes content tied to their favorite kind of play. Amazon, Netflix and other streamers have helped a programming niche that gives viewers looks at what happens to a team or league when players aren’t on camera or on the field of play, which could boost the interest of sports fans in the Oscar Mayer contest. The company wasn’t necessarily inspired by that programming genre, says Rice, who notes the company “is interested in that concept.”
The race is likely to cast Oscar Mayer’s long-running Wienermobiles in a different light. Six versions of the vehicle, which typically operate in different regions of the U.S. and were created in 1936 by Carl Mayer, nephew of the brand’s founder, will be outfitted like hot dogs from various parts of America. A “Slaw Dog” will represent the southeastern U.S., for example, while a Seattle Dog will take part on behalf of the northwestern part of the country.
Oscar Mayer’s sports-content maneuver comes under the aegis of Todd Kaplan, who joined Kraft Heinz as its chief marketing officer in July of 2024. Kaplan worked in a similar role for PepsiCo’s beverage division, and often tested gambits that married the company’s popular sodas to specific programs and content. In 2021, for example, Pepsi backed a new game show on Fox called “Cherries Wild” that aimed to promote a new favor of the company’s flagship soda.
Only one Wienermobile can win this year’s race, but there may be new opportunities down the line. Oscar Mayer’s Rice says the company would like to make the contest “a real annual event, something that really kicks off summer for the brand.”
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