I’ll confess I’m not quite as invested in NASCAR as I once was. For several years I lived in that world–literally–as FOX embraced the sport as part of their growth strategy, taking full advantage of what was an undervalued sleeping giant whose media rights were relatively cheap and spread out and for a time brought it all under their aegis. Even before FX discovered the secret to successful scripted TV, they had the rights to several races that brought in what was then network record and top-tier competitive audiences, not to mention ones from locations that otherwise ignored them. And when a struggling genre channel then called Speedvision was able to be added, eventually rebranded SPEED Channel, it gave FOX a full-time platform to cover the sport’s lesser tours, including the truck series, that had been previously relegated to sporadic regional coverage. I was given the opportunity to explore how all of this could benefit from the so-called FOX attitude, and I was deemed the ideal “Curious George” to lead it, as I was anything but the hardcore fan. New York City wasn’t exactly the hotbed of NASCAR culture, and the closest track to it, the oddly-shaped Watkins Glen oval located within a reasonably short drive of my college town, did not lend itself to a great viewing experience and what I discovered is that most of the folks I knew went there to party.
The sport has grown substantially since then, and much of the work we did expanded its appeal to a needed new generation which embraced some radical ideas, including a form of “playoffs” that tried to give greater value to the autumn races which typically would get lost against football. It was an evolution born in part out of frustration from NBC, which eagerly overpaid for those races needing something to replace and compete with Sunday afternoon football. It’s complicated, to be sure, employing a point system that eventually eliminates blocks of drivers from championship consideration until a “final 4” emerges. But unlike other sports where the “losers” go home, in order to produce a competitive race a full field of 36-38 entrants compete for their own rewards. Not to mention keeping their parochial fan bases invested for the entire run even if the ultimate prize is beyond them.
And that’s all the more needed when you have a dominance at the top that was yet again proven out yesterday, as USA TODAY’s Ellen J. Horrow reported:
Joey Logano won the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Championship race Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.
The 34-year-old won his third career Cup title, adding to the championships he won in 2018 and 2022. Logano became the 10th driver in NASCAR Cup Series history to win three or more championships.
Logano retook the lead in the midway point of the final stage and held off his Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney, who was aiming to win his second consecutive Cup title. The victory was Logano’s fourth of the season and the 36th of his Cup Series career. The championship was also the third in row for Team Penske after Logano’s title in 2022 and Blaney’s championship last year.
But per the NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN’s Austin Chastain, it points out exactly how anticlimactic this proved to be:
Logano got the job done when he had the opportunity, give him and his team all the credit. However, Logano won the championship with the fewest top-5 finishes (7), fewest top-10s (13) and the lowest average finishing position (17.11) of a NASCAR Cup Series champion.
NASCAR needs to tweak the playoff format to find a better balance with drivers winning races and consistently finishing well. Something between the current format and the “Kenseth Rule” when Matt Kenseth won his 2003 championship with one win, 11 top 5 finishes and 25 top 10s and an average finish of 10.25 that brought on the “Chase for the Cup” in 2004.
And while NASCAR remains a big deal, it’s not exactly top priority any more for its incumbents. SPEED Channel was replaced by the general national sports network the braintrust always desired to have–FS1–and has scant little motorsports content on it. And as RACING AMERICA’s Toby Christie reported last year, as was the case before FOX got involved the sport’s partners are once again disparate and potentially confusing:
NASCAR has officially landed its new media rights deal, which will begin with the 2025 NASCAR racing season. The deal will include current television partners FOX Sports, and NBC, but will also include Amazon, and TNT Sports.
The new deal will be a seven-year agreement, which will run through the end of the 2031 season.
FOX Sports will carry the opening 14 races of the NASCAR Cup Series season each year, including the Daytona 500. Following FOX’s 14-race stint, Amazon Prime Video will exclusively stream five events.
The Amazon Prime Video streaming-only portion of the deal is groundbreaking in the NASCAR world as it will mark the first time any NASCAR Cup Series event will be exclusively streamed.
Following the Amazon Prime Video portion of the schedule, TNT Sports will take over as the broadcast partner for five events. Those five races will be simulcast on both TNT and the B/R Sports tier on the Max Streaming Service.
NBC Sports will then carry the final 14 races of the season.
So, in effect, NBC is all the more invested in figuring out a way to make the NASCAR season more competitive and, frankly, more comprehendable. Assuming, of course, they have any bandwidth after they get finished with the more immediate priority of their latest and most expensive investment, their return to the NBA family.
Mark Lazarus and team, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Gentlemen, start your engines.
Courage…