As the 2023 season was about to come to an end, NASCAR sent the entire fandom into a frenzy by announcing its new $7.7 Billion media deal with two new partners. Their longtime broadcast partners: Fox Sports and NBC will still be in charge of covering the majority (14 races each) of the 38-race-long season. Besides that, Amazon Prime and TNT Sports are expected to join the grid in 2025.
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In a recent Joe Gibbs Racing video, team president Dave Alpern said, “NBC and Fox will be back broadcasting the first part and the second part of the season. But in between, we’ll have two new partners; five races in Amazon Prime and we’ll also have five races with Warner Brothers Discovery through TNT Racing. The Xfinity Series will also be broadcast the entire year through the CW Network.”
Both TNT and Amazon Prime reserve the right to broadcast the practice and qualifying laps for the entire Cup Series season through 2031. The good news for the viewers is that there is no need for any subscription to watch these races. “It’s available in every household in the United States, so we’re excited to have our Xfinity Series with one focused broadcast network,” Alpern added.
The share of races to be aired by Fox Sports include the Busch Light Clash and the Daytona 500 besides the entire season of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Similarly, NBC will have the opportunity to provide live coverage of the final fourteen races of the season, including the playoffs and the Championship four race.
How will this deal affect the viewers?
A lion-share of fans have been extremely vocal about their concerns revolving around the changes made in NASCAR coverage in the last decade. Although there were initial disappointments due to the coverage shifting from traditional over-the-air networks to cable networks such as FS1 or USA Network, the viewers could at least watch the races from various sources.
.@NASCAR is looking at taking the @NASCAR_Xfinity Series off of linear TV and moving it exclusively to a digital streaming service starting in 2025, per @Ourand_SBJ. https://t.co/FB0T6MzCAV
— Adam Stern (@A_S12) May 19, 2023
But the issue this time could potentially place these fans in an uncomfortable spot. And here’s how.
Although a subscription is not necessary to watch the live coverages of the races, a broadband service is essential for it. According to Broadband Now, a whopping 42 million American citizens still do not have the privilege to use broadband services. Unfortunately, that amounts to over 10% of the total American population.
However, the officials can be hardly blamed for this. The NFL aired on Amazon Prime for the first time in 2022. Needless to say, this trend will be followed by other OTT platforms, as they will want to add live sports coverage to their repertoire.
