1. Cup Regular Season Preview
2. Cup Team Rankings & Grades
3. TV/Streaming Preview
4. Truck Season Preview
5. Xfinity Season Preview
Nascar’s latest media rights deal starts this year, and you probably have questions. Well, I probably have answers!
CUP SERIES
Q: So what changes are there this year?
 |
| 2025 National Touring Schedule Matrix--click to enlarge |
A: Fox Sports will continue to have the first chunk of the schedule, followed by 10 races split between Amazon Prime and TNT. NBC Sports will continue to have the last chunk of the schedule. So everyone who wanted Nascar to go back to the 90’s, here you go—races on six different networks!
Q: What’s new with Fox?
A: As always, not much. The venerable Mike Joy and the improving Kevin Harvick return, as well as chucklehut yokel Clint Bowyer. If anything, the biggest change will be having five races on Fox and nine on FS1.
Q: Is the moving of races to cable a sign that the sport is losing further popularity, or that network execs use Nascar’s popularity to force people to still subscribe to cable channels?
A: Yes.
Q: What’s the Prime/TNT portion of the schedule?
A: Amazon Prime will stream from the Coca-Cola 600 through the Pocono race, while TNT will air the Nascar in-season tournament, whatever that is, from Atlanta through Indy.
Q: Why did Nascar decide to bring Prime into the fold?
A: Short answer—because Amazon paid them. Long answer—its part of a growing trend in sports broadcasting to have games/races on over-the-air networks (Fox/NBC), cable (FS1/USA), and streaming (Prime). Also, because Amazon paid them.
Q: What do we know about their broadcast teams?
A: Similar to TNT’s former “Summer Series” coverage, they’ll have a mixture of exclusive talent (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) and broadcasters on loan from other networks (Adam Alexander and Steve Letarte). And if a reference to TNT’s previous time gave you an eye-twitch, welcome to my world.
Q: Any changes to the NBC & USA portion of the schedule?
A: Not much beyond having four races on NBC and the rest on USA, putting the sport in such rarified air as WWF Livewire and reruns of Press Your Luck.
Q: Who will be the NBC Sports broadcasters?
A: Same as the end of last year—the Aussie guy, the high-pitched guy, and the other high-pitched guy.
Q: How about practice and qualifying?
A: The first half of the season will see practice and qualifying stream primarily on Prime (except for Daytona and the All-Star race, which will be on the Fox networks). The second half will interrupt endless reruns of Impractical Jokers by airing on TruTV.
XFINITY SERIES
Q: What’s going on with the Xfinity Series this year?
A: Drama! Action! Stars…oh, wait, you meant the tv deal. Well, every single Xfinity Series race will be broadcast over-the-air on The CW.
Q: What channel is The CW?
A: It’s a network so it varies location to location: CLICK HERE to find your local station.
Q: Who’s the announcers?
A: Adam Alexander is on play-by-play, with Jamie McMurray and Parker Kligerman as analysts. Hey, it’s a minor network, they gotta make do with what they can afford.
Q: What’s this about “in-house production”?
A: Nascar will produce these broadcasts itself, rather than the other way around. The biggest changes are going to likely be not having the commentators at the track and really, really fawning praise of Steve Phelps.
TRUCK SERIES
Q: Is anything changing? Will all the races be on FS1? Does Michael Waltrip still draw a paycheck?
A: No, yes, and regrettably so.
www.spaderacing.com updated four times weekly
Visit the store https://www.cafepress.com/spaderacing
Buy the book 100 Stock Car Racing What Ifs Unauthorized
A MOXOC Media production