FOX In, But Who Takes NASCAR TV Races in '15?

By Bob Pockrass, Sporting News

To say there’s a lot of fan angst over NASCAR and its future television plans would be an understatement.

NASCAR has signed one contract for 2015-2022, for the first 13 Cup races, with Fox Sports, which includes the new Fox Sports 1 that replaces Speed in August.

Fans are worried that without Speed, whether they will get all the qualifying and practice sessions they have seen in the past. They worry that the occasional practice or qualifying session not aired will become more a constant occurrence. They worry that Fox doesn’t consider racing important by getting rid of its racing-oriented channel.

Fox made a big decision at Talladega that shows what it thinks of NASCAR. Fox could have moved the Cup race to Speed or another one of its networks after the rain delay of 3 hours, 36 minutes.

But Fox Sports opted to go to the end on network television, and it had to get the OK from its entertainment department to keep it on past 7 p.m. Eastern.

NASCAR got the race done shortly after 8 p.m. ET, so the Simpsons still aired close to on time. It was about too dark to race anyway (the night before, NASCAR went to about 8:35 p.m. but the cloud cover didn’t make it as dark).

Fox considered it a priority to get NASCAR as one of its anchor sports for its all-sports Fox Sports 1 network, so it already signed a deal for 2015-2022 (at a 36 percent rate increase). While the sport might have lost some of its buzz, Fox Sports recognized the loyalty of NASCAR fans to watch its programming. It will eventually put some Cup races on that cable network to boost its profile.

The big question now turns to who will televise the remaining 23 races of the season. Right now, TNT has six and ESPN/ABC has 17.

NBC is expected to make a run at NASCAR. It could replace TNT for those six races but there’s also speculation it could take 12 or 13 races and ESPN/ABC gets the final 10 or 11 events.

With Turner relinquishing NASCAR.com to NASCAR, it makes little sense for it to have the six races. It’s not enough time to really get in a good flow. The TNT telecasts aren’t bad at all, but it’s just too short of a bridge from Fox to ESPN for any continuity or for the announcers to get into a groove.

If NBC lands races, that would put more Cup events on network television, which is important considering the addition of cable races to the Fox portion of the schedule.