NASCAR is expected to announce today that it will be selling the rights of its popular Web site NASCAR Online (www.nascar.com) to a division of Turner Broadcasting. According to various sources, NASCAR has sold the rights of NASCAR Online to the Turner Interactive group for the next six years, beginning in 2001. Turner is owned by the Time-Warner Co., which is controlled by America Online. NASCAR Online is expected to have a major presence on AOL, the nation’s leading Internet provider with more than 20 million subscribers. Currently, NASCAR is partnered with ESPN on the Internet, but when the new television deal starts in 2001, ESPN will only have the broadcast rights to the Craftsman Truck Series(Speed Magazine and SpeedVision)
UPDATE: Turner Sports, NASCAR partner for Internet rights Turner Sports and NASCAR announced Tuesday that Turner Sports has acquired NASCAR’s internet rights and will become the exclusive producers of NASCAR Online. See stories at NOL: Turner, NASCAR partner for Internet rights and AOL, NASCAR announce marketing agreement
UPDATE 2: from SpeedVision – NASCAR and Turner Sports Tuesday announced that Turner has acquired NASCAR’s Internet rights and will become producer of NASCAR Online, NASCAR’s official web site, beginning Jan. 1. In a separate announcement, America Online and NASCAR have agreed to a partnership for mutual promotion and marketing. AOL and its affiliates will plug NASCAR and NASCAR Online, while NASCAR will offer AOL an increased presence in several areas. Further in the same story the follow is mentioned and quoted: “We’ve got to be true to the journalistic mission of the company; we dont make stuff up. That’s something Brian(France) and his group recognize is important to NASCAR fans.” Turner president Mark Lazarus took what sounded like a sideswipe at other news and rumor sites, such as jayski.com, the Drudge Report of NASCAR. “There’s a cottage industry out there that takes advantage of this and fragments the audience, which we can now bring to NASCAR Online,” he said. And…”News and the delivery of news will continue as it always has, on the Internet or other forms of news, there are exclusivities we will have, but Internet sites will cover NASCAR and other sports as they always have.”(SpeedVision), hmmm…interesting(10-10-2000)