When NASCAR began its new set of media rights deals last season, the biggest hurdle the racing circuit would have to clear was educating fans about where races would air.
NASCAR went from having two broadcast partners under its previous media rights agreements to five under its new set of deals. This year, that count has expanded to six with Versant’s spinoff from NBC.
Fox, Prime Video, TNT Sports, NBC, Versant, and The CW, all have a piece of NASCAR. Naturally, that has led to confusion for fans and a predictable drop in viewership, at least during some portions of the season.
In 2024, the final year of NASCAR’s old set of deals, 21 Cup Series races aired on broadcast television. This season, just nine Cup Series races will be available on broadcast television. Instead, a handful of races will stream on Prime Video, another handful will air on TNT Sports’ cable networks, and yet more will air on FS1 or USA Network. Not to mention, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will air on The CW.
It’s a lot to ask of from fans, many of whom were accustomed to simply turning to Fox or NBC for years, where all of the most important races aired. However, in order to get the jump in media rights revenue it needed, NASCAR split its rights every which way, creating this confusion.
Fast-forward to Year 2 of the new media era for NASCAR, and president Steve O’Donnell is “pleasantly surprised” about how the transition has gone, though acknowledged that there was a late-season “falloff” in interest last year that the circuit needs to address. Joining Puck sports correspondent John Ourand on The Varsity podcast, O’Donnell explained why he’s bullish on NASCAR’s current media setup even though there’s still some work to do.
“We had a few less [broadcast] network races, so we thought we were going to get off to a tough start in terms of less network races, overall ratings. We were pleasantly surprised, even despite rain at Daytona, where we kind of ended it with Fox and thought, ‘OK, this is a good start to where we’re going.’ And then it was a big question mark with Amazon. I will tell you that when discussions within the industry were initially talking about Amazon, everyone was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s this going to mean for sponsorship? What’s going to happen to the sport?’ By the end of the Amazon five races, everyone in the industry said, ‘Can Amazon do 36 races. That was fantastic,'” O’Donnell said.
“And then I think as we looked toward the latter half of the season, we felt a tail-off. We put so much focus on the beginning of the season and that launch with Amazon, we felt a little bit of the pain when we went TNT, NBC, USA. And I think one of the lessons we learned is that focus, kind of, second half of the season, we kind of really gotta, ‘Let’s go.’ We know we’re going to be good [on] Fox. We know we’re going to be good [on] Amazon. What can we do to refocus fans, ‘Alright, make the transition over to Turner,’ and then we’re on our way with Versant. So that’s going to be a big focus for us, especially with the new playoff format.”
“You’ve got this portion of the season where you gotta turn to fans, you gotta tell them exactly where the race is and pound that home every single day and see what happens this year,” O’Donnell continued. “It’s going to be a big focus for us. If you see, kind of, that falloff, we’re going to continue to make efforts, because we need Turner to succeed, we need [USA Sports president] Matt Hong and Versant and his team to succeed. They’ve got a big bet on us and we’ve got a big bet on them to make sure we carry this thing through all the way to Miami and the championship.”
Last year, TNT’s five-race schedule averaged just 2.1 million viewers, clocking in slightly below Prime Video’s average of 2.16 million viewers. Both broadcasters, however, fell well short of FS1’s eight-race slate, which averaged 2.5 million viewers per race. Although the FS1 races generally featured more popular events, the discrepancy goes to show that FS1, a familiar TV partner for NASCAR fans, fared much better than the new partners.
The hope for O’Donnell and his team at NASCAR is that over time fans will begin to learn the new rhythms of the season. For now, NASCAR will enjoy its opening few races on Fox and FS1 before handing its circuit over the Prime Video in May.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.