More than a year after being informed that his contract at NBC wasn’t being renewed, longtime NASCAR broadcaster Rick Allen is breaking his silence.
Appearing on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s The Dale Jr. Download podcast, Allen told his side of the story regarding his departure from NBC for the first time. According to the Nebraska native, he was first informed of the impending change one day before he emceed NASCAR’s 2024 Hall of Fame ceremony last January, months before the network’s lineup changes would take effect.
According to Allen, the plan was for him to continue calling races throughout the regular season before being replaced by Leigh Diffey in time for the NASCAR Cup Series. The 55-year-old admitted to being confused by the decision, as well as the timing of its implementation.
“At the time, I didn’t understand that. I guess I didn’t know why that would be the way you would transition somebody in and me out,” he told Earnhardt Jr., his former NBC colleague. “I didn’t know why. I went into that lunch meeting not having a clue my contract wouldn’t be renewed… I was crushed.”
Allen said that it was just a few months earlier that an executive had informed both he and Earnhardt Jr. that they would be receiving long-term contracts, only for neither to get renewed (Dale Jr. now covers the sport for Amazon and TNT). He was also instructed to keep the plans confidential, even though they wouldn’t be implemented until months later.
The news inevitably leaked in March, five months before Diffey officially replaced Allen in NBC’s top NASCAR booth. Once again, NBC instructed Allen to remain quiet, and he complied. And it wasn’t until a conversation with Michael Jordan that he realized that his silence might have been sending the wrong message.
“I think it looked bad. Again, public perception was that I had done something wrong,” Allen said. “… I’ll name drop, but it hit me like a ton of bricks when, we golf with a bunch of guys and we were at Michael Jordan’s golf course… the first thing that Jordan says to me when I went up to him at his golf course… was, ‘what’d you do man?’ And I looked at him and I was kind of thinking, ‘I don’t know what he’s talking about here. And he goes, ‘how come you aren’t announcing the races? You’re NASCAR.’ He goes, “why aren’t you announcing races anymore? What did you do?’
“I sat there, and I was like, ‘Oh my.’ So not only does Jordan know who I am, which I was like, ‘wow OK.’ But he thought I had done something
wrong and that’s why they put Diffey in. And so immediately, I was like crushed.”
“Well I guess I could see how you’d come to the conclusion that people thought you had done something wrong,” Earnhardt Jr. replied.
In retrospect, Allen says that he wishes he would have been more vocal to make it clear that his departure wasn’t his choice and that he still wanted to call NASCAR races for any network that would have him. After failing to land a role during the latest round of hiring ahead of NASCAR’s new TV rights deal, Allen says he’s now starting his own company but remains open to any broadcasting opportunities that may come his way.