NASCAR is going to start its negotiations for the new TV deal that will begin with the 2025 season as the sport likely aims to have an eight to 10-year agreement for this cycle. However, one major name has already been mentioned alongside FOX and NBC.
According to Sports Business Journal’s Adam Stern, there are rumblings that ESPN might be interested in joining NASCAR’s upcoming TV deal for the 2025 season and beyond, as stated on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
ESPN previously ran NASCAR events on the network starting in 1981 with its final race coming during the 2014 season. This would be a major development if the network could run both NASCAR and Formula 1 events.
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ESPN open to a meeting with NASCAR, rumblings of potential interest persist
NASCAR ratings were on the rise this season as it unofficially marked the best 38-race stretch in years. Based on unofficial calculations, it was the first time the sport earned over three million average viewers per race since 2018.
This is coming at a perfect time as the sport needs to start negotiating a new TV deal as its current one is set to expire after the 2024 season. Due to this, it has been a topic of conversation lately.
Stern talked to SiriusXM Radio on November 14 as the exclusive negotiating window for FOX and NBC is set to expire in early 2023.
“FOX and NBC are going to have an exclusive negotiating window which from what I understand will expire at some point early in 2023, maybe perhaps after 2/1 or somewhere in and around that time. If FOX and NBC don’t strike a renewal in that window, then NASCAR will be able to go up to the open market. ESPN has already stated to me and Sports Business Journal that they are open to taking a meeting with NASCAR. They said they’ll always take meetings from major sports properties, they wouldn’t just turn it down out of hand. There is some rumblings that they might be interested, they might not just be saying that.”
Adam Stern on FOX/NBC’s negotiation window and ESPN
This is very notable as ESPN is the world’s largest sports network in the entire world. If ESPN can return to the sport and provide quality coverage, there is no way this can be deemed a failure.
The racing series used to be a viewership monster but that has started to die down over the last decade. Perhaps, a new energy by ESPN could help bring it back to levels before to a certain extent.
As for now, it will interesting to see how it all develops as NASCAR works on its next TV deal which is bound to be one that breaks barriers for the sport.