Did You Notice? … The chaos of Austin Dillon’s controversial finish at Richmond Raceway has obscured the bigger story within NASCAR circles coming out of Olympic Break? Despite two more weeks to sit, think, and potentially renegotiate both NASCAR and its team ownership group, the Race Team Alliance (RTA), are nowhere near finalizing a new charter agreement that expires at the end of the season.
When I say nowhere near, let me make this clear: the team owners are somewhere in Canada and NASCAR is somewhere around Mexico, maybe further south. Not a single person I’ve discussed this deal with on either side of the fence thinks negotiations are going well. Frontstretch reporters at Richmond Raceway this weekend discovered nothing that changes the narrative.
Instead, internal anxiety builds at a pivotal point in NASCAR’s future. A blockbuster TV deal begins in 2025, adding three new long-term partners: Warner Brothers Discovery, Amazon and the CW (covering the sport’s Xfinity Series full-time). For the Cup Series, this agreement opens the door to streaming and has plenty of upside. Amazon, just like with its NFL Thursday Night Football deal, could connect the sport to younger fans who lose track of NASCAR the second it moves to USA Network or FOX Sports 1 during the late spring and summer months.
Those new broadcasters are poised to bring fresh approaches to covering the sport, investing in an expensive property that combined will cost all networks (including Fox and NBC) a reported $1.1 billion per season. That money is a showcase of NASCAR’s power and influence: the NHL, by comparison, makes $625 million per year from its deals with Turner and ESPN.
Make no mistake: while down from its peak in the mid 2000s, NASCAR remains extremely popular. Richmond’s race on Sunday attracted 2.22 million viewers on USA, the highest non-Olympic event of the week on television. Ticket sales at tracks are up and Cup has seen great competition this year with a number of record-setting finishes.
NASCAR is also positioning itself for how its racing will evolve over the next decade. For years, it’s been actively courting new manufacturers, with everyone from Nissan to Honda to Dodge rumored to come on board at some point during the 2020s. Their electric prototype, introduced last month, is part of a long-term effort to move toward where the majority of American vehicles are headed. Behind the scenes, Ben Kennedy, the grandson of Bill…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …