On the surface, it seems that for a sports franchise such as the Indy Racing League to leave ESPN, things have to be kind of nuts, sort of like dumping Heidi Klum.
 “Why?” open-wheel fans ask as they reach for their remotes and fumble through their TV Guides, attempting to find out just what the Versus network is and where it can be found on their cable or satellite networks.
But underneath the surface, the reasons for leaving a sports-broadcasting juggernaut for a up-and-comer is more sage than it first appears.
Versus (or Vs.) is the former Outdoor Life Network and future home of the IndyCar Series. The network has been around since 1995, just like the IRL. In 2006, it became the Versus network with less focus on the outdoors and more on competitive sports. Its broadcast properties include the National Hockey League, the Tour de France, Professional Bull Riders and now the IndyCar Series.
Versus is in 70 million homes and its lineup also includes some college football, which has helped its visibility as has the NHL.

Already pushed to ESPN2 most of the time, IndyCar Series officials feared rightfully things would only get worse and their series would soon find itself fighting for time slots with mixed-martial arts, the ESPN-created X-Games or whatever chic made-for-TV sport comes along.
They found that a bit of a commitment from ESPN is really no commitment at all. They feared their races would end up following dodgeball on ESPN8 (the Ocho) . . .

“If you’re going to get behind something, then really get behind it and push it with on-air promotion and go full-speed ahead on it,” said Marc Fein, the network’s executive vice president of programming, production and business operations.
In a nutshell, that’s how Fein and his network sold the IndyCar Series powers that be (see, Tony George) on leaving the ambivalent confines of ESPN, which seemed to tolerate the balance of the IndyCar Series schedule so that its parent company, ABC, could have rights to the Indianapolis 500.
ESPN has become more than a sports network, it has become iconic in its own right — part of American pop culture complete with its own celebrities and catchphrases.
But it has also become a crowded place as the part-time home of the NFL, NASCAR, Major League Baseball, the NBA and big-time college football and basketball.
So, “boo-yow,” the IRL had to split with the promise of a brighter future full of pre-race shows and slickly produced features on all things that make the IRL tick.
“We want to take their franchise and our network to new heights,” said Fein, who watched closely as the IRL and Champ Car World Series reunified American open-wheel racing prior to the 2008 season and the momentum the series seems to now have. “When you look back on it in 10 years, we want to say, ‘Hey, what an amazing run it’s been.’
“With us, we want to continue the momentum of the past two years, having the Versus brand out there. . . We want to build with studio programs and original programming, and do what we can to build the (IRL) franchise.”
Already pushed to ESPN2 most of the time, IndyCar Series officials feared rightfully things would only get worse and their series would soon find itself fighting for time slots with mixed-martial arts, the ESPN-created X-Games or whatever chic made-for-TV sport comes along.
They found that a bit of a commitment from ESPN is really no commitment at all. They feared their races would end up following dodgeball on ESPN8 (the Ocho), the imaginary network spoofed in the movie “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story” as the place where irrelevant sports go to die in the ratings.
They saw the disparity between the coverage their races received versus the coverage received by NASCAR, which includes a daily half-hour “NASCAR Now” news program along with hour-long pre-race shows. NASCAR’s secondary Nationwide Series fares better than the IndyCar Series races when it comes to ESPN programming. IRL programming usually consists of 15 minutes of pre-race chit chat, a race-week Danica update and maybe a couple of driver interviews from pit road before the green flag drops.
In March, as the IndyCar Series is getting started, ESPN is concerned with NCAA basketball and its plethora of conference tournaments. In April, focus shifts to the opening of the Major League Baseball season and then to the NFL Draft.
Then, at midseason, ESPN picks up NASCAR.
Pardon the folks at the IRL if they felt a little like second-class citizens of Disney’s ESPN world. They were promised the star treatment by Versus, so what were they supposed to do? Settle for the Ocho?
“We’re going to give them the airtime — the three-hour windows for the races,” Fein said. “They have a lot of personalities that people know, which I think is fantastic.  I think there are even more personalities with the drivers, and I think we can help them out with marketing campaigns and features and vignettes and things within the shows.”
It sounds like a commitment, one the IndyCar Series needs if it is to take itself, its sponsors and its drivers back to the heights it once enjoyed.