MOORESVILLE, N.C. — NASCAR officials have announced a seven-year television and media rights deal that will keep two of its current broadcast partners, while adding a streaming package to the mix.
The announcement was made Wednesday afternoon in Nashville, where NASCAR will honor its champions on Thursday night.
“When we set out to do the deals, the deals really were a combination of optimizing from a distribution standpoint, where NASCAR was going to be, and obviously there’s a financial component as well, and we were thrilled with where we netted out on the distribution,” NASCAR President Steve Phelps said at the announcement.
“I think that optimization is going to be big for the growth of the sport that we’re going to experience in 2025 and beyond.”
According to the Sports Business Journal, the deal is worth $1.1 billion a year.
“I think what we’ve seen over the last five years with the industry working together is schedule innovation, on-track product innovation, but we wanted to continue to push the envelope from a distribution perspective, as well,” said Bryan Herbst, NASCAR Senior Video President of Media Productions. “Steve spoke about the mix of broadcast, cable, direct-to-consumer, and streaming.
“We wanted to make sure that all the innovation we’re doing from a sport perspective that we were getting in front of new demos and that we were setting ourselves up well for the future.”
The Full Breakdown
FOX will get 14 NASCAR Cup Series races annually in the first half of the season, including the Daytona 500.
Building upon a successful relationship of more than two decades, FOX Sports and NASCAR have extended their multi-series media rights agreement to carry 14 Cup Series races, including practice and qualifying for the Busch Light Clash, Daytona 500 and NASCAR All-Star Race as well as exclusive rights for the entire 23-race NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series schedule from 2025-’31.
“We are proud to begin the next chapter of what will soon be a three-decade relationship with our friends at NASCAR,” said FOX Sports CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shanks. “As the continued home of the Daytona 500, we look forward to getting every season off to a roaring start.”
After FOX, Amazon’s Prime Video will stream five events, marking the first time that NASCAR’s premier series will be exclusively live-streamed.
“NASCAR is the most popular motorsport in the country, and we can’t wait to deliver Cup Series racing to Prime members in the U.S. for the first time,” said Jay Marine, vice president and global head of sports at Prime Video. “We are excited to find ways to get NASCAR fans closer to the racing than ever before, and we are proud to contribute to the growth of the sport in the years ahead.”
After Amazon, Warner Bros. Discovery will carry the next five Cup races, which will be simulcast on both TNT and the B/R Sports tier on its Max streaming service (formerly HBO Max).
NBC Sports will complete the season with the final 14 races, including the championship finale at Phoenix Raceway.
“For a decade, NBC Sports has delivered some of the biggest moments in NASCAR to millions of fans, including their broadcasts of the playoffs and our season finale championship race,” said NASCAR President Steve Phelps. “They continue to be a tremendous partner and we can’t wait to watch the drama and excitement unfold with race fans everywhere across NBC platforms for another seven years.”
The long-standing partnership between NBC Sports and NASCAR dates to 2001, when NBC broadcast the second half of the season, including the championship, for six seasons as part of a joint venture. NBC Sports and NASCAR partnered again with a 10-year agreement beginning in 2015 and running through the upcoming 2024 season. The new agreement begins in 2025.
“We are thrilled that the NASCAR champion will continue to be crowned on our platforms for years to come,” said NBC Sports President Rick Cordella. “Whether it’s the unpredictability of a superspeedway, a Playoff cutoff race, or the championship finale, NBC Sports will use its wide array of platforms to present the dramatic conclusion to every NASCAR season for what will be 17 years at the end of this extension.”
As part of the new deal, NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying sessions will be streamed.
Amazon Prime will carry the sessions from the start of each season through the conclusion of its five Cup races (except for the preseason Busch Light Clash exhibition, Daytona 500 and NASCAR All-Star Race sessions, which will remain with FOX).
TNT Sports, a division of Warner Bros. Discovery and NASCAR have reached a new seven-year multimedia rights agreement for domestic distribution in the U.S. that will see some of the biggest moments in the NASCAR season returning to TNT Sports’ linear and streaming platforms.
Starting in 2025, TNT Sports will be the exclusive home to five NASCAR Cup Series races each summer, airing in consecutive weeks on TNT and B/R Sports Add-On on Max. Additionally, truTV and Max will exclusively simulcast the second half of the NASCAR Cup Series practices and qualifying sessions each season.
The new agreement will also include expansive digital rights for content streaming via B/R Sports Add-On on Max — allowing for the full use of new technologies to develop immersive viewing experiences — and highlight rights for Bleacher Report’s digital and social platforms.
“We are thrilled to welcome NASCAR back to TNT Sports, and build on our rich, shared history of providing immersive fan experiences that only our world-class team can deliver,” said Luis Silberwasser, Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports. “This agreement expands our portfolio of premium sports content throughout the Summer and further elevates Max and our leading linear networks.
“We look forward to utilizing all of our resources to create new opportunities for compelling storytelling that connects with our fans, as we present the thrilling action and excitement on the track in innovative ways throughout the entire NASCAR season.”
This will mark the continuation of TNT Sports’ 32-year relationship with NASCAR, a collaboration that began in 1983 and one that has been centered on innovation and creativity that was instrumental to the growth of the sport.
How The CW Network Fits In
As previously announced, The CW Network is set to become the exclusive home to the NASCAR Xfinity Series beginning in 2025 and extending through the 2031 season with 33 live races, along with practice and qualifying events each weekend.
All Xfinity Series races, and ancillary content will be fully produced by NASCAR Productions in close collaboration with The CW Network and will include additional viewing opportunities on The CW’s digital platforms.
“We are super excited about what 2025 is going to bring to us because of where the distribution that we now have across air, which is a combination of obviously broadcast, cable and streaming,” Phelps said at the announcement in Nashville. “We want to meet race fans where they are or potentially race fans where they are. We think this group does exactly that for us. So, we couldn’t be happier to have them on board.
“The other thing I want to talk about very quickly is what our industry, the NASCAR industry, has done to come together, whether you’re talking about drivers, racetracks, our race teams. Our industry comes together better than any other sports property when there’s a mountain to climb, and that’s what happened in 2020. That’s what happened honestly just for the sport overall.
“You look at the growth of where the sport is, and I think it’s a testament to the success of the sport to have these world-class media companies all want to be part of our sport, plus The CW.”
By bringing in Amazon as a streaming partner, NASCAR is venturing into the future of how sports will be delivered. NASCAR joins the National Football League’s Thursday Night Football property on Amazon Prime as signature sports for that streaming service.
“In terms of why NASCAR for Amazon, what we really look for are premium tier 1 sports that can move the needle for Prime, and NASCAR fits that,” Marine said. “A sport that has passionate fan base, a large fan base, where the sport is must-see for them. That is extremely valuable.
“Ultimately what we’re trying to do is make the Prime membership program more valuable for our Prime members. That’s what we try to do in every decision we make. NASCAR fits perfectly with that.
“Then, we really want to go innovate. We look at this as a seven-year-plus partnership, and we’ll talk about the renewal later, but that’s how we want to invest so that we can innovate for the long-term, and we’re excited to do that. We’re excited to reach a younger audience who may have cut the cord and not watching as much, which we’ve been able to do with Thursday Night Football as an example.
“We’re excited to be part of it and excited to work across this partnership group, as well.”
Phelps is guiding NASCAR into the future with this media rights deal. Although it may rankle some of the older fans that don’t understand the way sports will be delivered into the future, it has successfully expanded its content footprint.
“There was a common theme throughout all of them that was really our fans and the quality of our fans, the size of the fan base,” Phelps said. “They are the best fans in all of sports. For our fans, what they can expect moving forward is world-class production, distribution that is going to be the same in many cases, and new and others.
“It is our job at NASCAR collectively as the stakeholders to bring more and more people into this great sport, and I think what we have just announced today is going to do exactly that.”