The US' CW Network broadcaster will give its subscribers an early look at Nascar action this year, before taking live domestic rights to the stock car-racing series in 2025, it has been announced.
It was unveiled yesterday that CW Network, which will exclusively broadcast the Nascar Xfinity Series (the second tier of Nascar action) to a domestic audience across the 2025-31 cycle, will effectively begin its deal early, by covering the final eight races of the 2024 Xfinity Series.
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The short-term deal runs from the race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Tennessee, on September 20, through the Xfinity Series multi-race playoff campaign, before ending with the Championship clash at Phoenix Raceway in Arizona, on November 9.
These races will still, however, be produced by the 2024 Xfinity Series rights-holder, US national network (and long-time Nascar partner) NBC Sports.
CW Network’s deal for the 2025-31 Xfinity Series rights was unveiled in July, a seven-year deal that marks a significant change in the stock car racing series’ approach to domestic media rights in the coming years.
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The broadcaster will air 33 live Xfinity Series races annually, along with practice and qualifying events each weekend.
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By GlobalDataFor the first time in the series' history, every Xfinity Series race will be available on free, over-the-air broadcast television with additional content available through CW’s digital platforms.
The Nascar Productions group will produce all races and ancillary content, in close collaboration with CW Network.
At present, domestic media rights to Nascar properties are held by Fox and Comcast (which owns NBCUniversal).
The national media giants split rights to Nascar’s top-tier Cup Series, Xfinity Series, and third-tier Truck Series under eight-year deals that began in 2015 and run through 2024.
Fox holds exclusive rights to all major Nascar properties for the first half of the season, while Comcast does so for the latter portion of the campaign.
The Cup Series 2025-31 cycle, through a major domestic rights deal unveiled last November, will be shown by Fox and NBC, as well as both Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports.
Brian Herbst, senior vice president of media and productions at Nascar, has said: “We have incredible media partners who collaborate at an exceptional level to showcase the excitement of live Nascar racing. We’re looking forward to having The CW get a head start as the home of the Nascar Xfinity Series with the help of NBC Sports and continuing to deliver our fans thrilling on-track action.”
Other sports coverage on CW Network includes the controversial LIV Golf series.
Elsewhere, Nascar has hired John Dahl as its new senior vice president of content.
He will be responsible for both the Nascar Studios and Nascar Digital Media arms and will take up the role on May 1.
Dahl will report to the organization’s chief digital officer Tim Clark, and is expected to split his time between New York City and the Nascar productions facility in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He was previously a long-time senior producer and industry veteran at sports broadcasting heavyweight ESPN, last holding the position of vice president and executive producer for special projects and films.
Dahl said: "Over the course of my career, I’ve been fortunate to experience firsthand Nascar’s rich reservoir of characters and storylines, from the people behind the wheel all the way to the tracks and fans themselves. I’m excited to help build on the foundation of extraordinary content being created in and around Nascar to give fans more reasons to engage.”
In February, it was strongly reported that Nascar had entered into a content-based deal with the Creative Artists Agency.
The studio division of Nascar has already produced the Nascar: Full Speed show, which made its debut on the streaming platform Netflix in January, alongside the Words + Pictures production house.
