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NASCAR Nets $4.48B for TV Deal

Posted on: Thursday, 8 December 2005, 18:00 CST

By JENNA FRYER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Race fans, start your clickers. And make sure the TV listings are handy.

Beginning in 2007, NASCAR viewers will need both to navigate their way through a 36-race television schedule.

NASCAR agreed to an eight-year, $4.48 billion television deal Wednesday that will split its schedule among the networks beginning in 2007. The 36 events will be aired on FOX, ABC/ESPN and TNT, and the annual all-star race will be on Speed Channel.

Although the actual races will have scheduling continuity, the remainder of the weekend programming - qualifying, practices and the Busch Series - will be spread out all over the dial in deals that run through the 2014 season.

"This is a major accomplishment for the NASCAR drivers, teams and track operators that have made this sport what it is today," chairman Brian France said. "The new broadcast partnership is also good for the fans, because they will have so much more NASCAR content from a variety of media and new media sources."

Marc Ganis, a sports marketer who heads Chicago's Sportscorp Ltd., dismissed a suggestion that the multitude of networks could prove confusing to viewers.

"NASCAR is sufficiently attractive to audiences that they will look for where the races are from week to week," he said.

Under the new deal, FOX gets the Daytona 500 and the 12 races that follow, TNT gets a six-event stretch over the summer, and ABC/ ESPN closes out the schedule with 17 races - including all 10 Chase for the championship events.

ESPN's networks also will be home to the lower-tier Busch Series.

The deal marks a return to the sport for ABC/ESPN and the furthering of a long-term relationship for TNT.

ABC/ESPN had been shut out of the last TV contract, a six-year, $2.8 billion deal that began in 2001 and split the schedule among FOX, NBC and the network's sister stations. When NBC declined to extend its contract with NASCAR, it opened the door for the networks, owned by The Walt Disney Co., to negotiate.

Ganis said the multilayered deal shows NASCAR remains a hot property even after extensive tinkering to its championship format the last two years.

"This validates his [Brian France's] concept of the Chase for the Cup," Ganis said. "This validates his positioning of NASCAR as a national sport."

Source: Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.

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