FOX, NASCAR finalize new 7-year broadcast deal starting in 2025

Bob Pockrass

FOX NASCAR Insider

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — NASCAR has the first of two pivotal negotiations complete as it has agreed to a seven-year broadcast deal starting in 2025 with FOX, NBC, Warner Brothers Discovery and Amazon for Cup Series telecasts, a deal that includes five races only available on stream through Amazon.

“We have two great partners right now in NBC and FOX with broadcast and cable,” NASCAR president Steve Phelps said Wednesday night. “It was important to add the direct-to-consumer streaming element to it. … These four particular [partners] all add something unique and different for our fans.

“As we looked through the lens of what this deal was going to look like, we had the fan interest in mind. And not just the existing fans, but new fans as well.”

The next step for NASCAR is to extend its charter agreement, its version of a franchise, with its teams. The current charter agreement ends after the 2024 season.

Now that NASCAR knows how much revenue it will bring in from its broadcast package — terms were not disclosed during the announcement Wednesday — it can sit down with the teams to structure how it will pay them as part of a new charter agreement.

NASCAR currently guarantees a set amount to each charter team for the season and then pays based on performance in four ways — how a team does in each race, how a team finishes in the season-ending standings, how the team has finished in the standings the three previous years and also championships earned. Charter teams must compete in every event to keep their charter.

NASCAR historically has allocated 25 percent of its television revenue to go to the teams while it keeps 10 percent as the sanctioning body. The tracks — primarily owned by either NASCAR or Speedway Motorsports — have received 65 percent.

“Nothing to report at this particular time about how the dollars will be distributed,” Phelps said. “That will be between our teams and us in the coming couple of months as we get our charters extended.

“I don’t know exactly when we are going to get it done. The teams and ourselves are committed to doing that.”

While terms were not announced, RFK Racing President Steve Newmark said the media rights deal is expected to have a significant year-over-year increase over the 10-year deal that ends after the 2024 season.

“There’s general excitement about what they were able to accomplish,” Newmark said. “Having four media conglomerates of this size and weight and sophistication behind it is important for the sport.”

As part of the new broadcast rights agreement that runs from 2025-2031:

–FOX Sports will telecast the first 14 events of the Cup season with five on FOX and nine on FS1. FOX previously had the first 18 races. FOX will continue to have the Daytona 500, the Clash and the all-star race. The full Craftsman Truck Series season will remain on FS1.

–Amazon Prime will stream the next five Cup events. For the first half of the season, Amazon Prime will also have all practice and qualifying sessions except for the Clash, the Daytona 500 and the all-star race — those will be telecast by FOX Sports. This will be Amazon’s first foray into NASCAR and the first time NASCAR will have events that will solely be available through streaming.

–TNT will telecast the five Cup events after that and will stream all its races through its platforms without the need for authentication. Warner Brothers Discovery also will have practice and qualifying starting with its portion of the schedule through the end of the year with those streaming on its Max platform and airing on truTV. This marks TNT’s return to the sport after having telecasts from 2001-2014.

–NBC Sports will telecast the final 14 events of the Cup season. There will be four races on NBC and 11 on USA Network. NBC previously had the final 20 events of the Cup schedule.

–CW, as previously announced, will telecast the entire Xfinity Series season.

The announcement Wednesday extended FOX’s relationship with NASCAR that started with the 2001 Daytona 500.

“Nothing makes us more proud than being the one that gets to kick off the season with the Great American Race, the Daytona 500,” FOX Sports CEO Eric Shanks said. “Everybody in this room has been to it, and everybody knows how special it is and unique it is to start off a sport with its biggest event, and we want to keep pushing and we want to keep making it bigger and better, and it really is one of the crown jewels at FOX Sports.”

The Daytona 500 will remain as the first points race. There has been speculation over the years that NASCAR had considered potentially starting the season earlier and not beginning with the Daytona 500.

“I don’t see that happening,” Phelps said. “I think the Daytona 500 will be the kickoff to our regular season for the foreseeable future.”

As far as the all-star race, it will have to be a week earlier than usual most likely to fit into the FOX portion as long as there is no off weekend between the Daytona 500 and the middle of May. This year, the all-star race (at North Wilkesboro Speedway) is the 15th event on the Cup schedule.

“We’ll get through all-star this year at North Wilkesboro again,” Phelps said. “People really look forward to it being in the schedule. What happens in 2025 and beyond, I don’t know, schedule-wise at all other than where we are going to start our regular season.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.