The negotiations over NASCAR’s future television contracts continue out in Beverly Hills, Calif., where Richard Glover reports the process is “right on schedule.” NASCAR’s energetic vice president of broadcasting and new media hints the sanctioning body’s next multi-year deal will look much the same as the current contracts. The Fox/FX and NBC/Turner groups, who have enjoyed NASCAR Nextel Cup broadcast rights since 2001, each want to re-up and continue their split-season relationships with big-league stock car racing. The current $2.4 billion contract ends next season and Glover predicts the next contract will be signed and announced sometime in late November or early December. He said there could be some minor changes, “tweaks” as he called them, to the next big TV contract. The Daytona 500 is apparently some sort of wild card in the process, now that NBC/Turner enjoys the fruits of the Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship playoff format. The Chase was added into the mix last season, the fourth year of the current contract.
The ABC/ESPN group, which lost broadcast rights to its competitors after the inaugural NASCAR television contracts were announced in 1999, wants to get back into the racing game. From 1979 through 1999, individual racetracks negotiated their own deals with the TV industry. NASCAR racing was scattered across the dial, with every major network, with the exception of Fox, televising races. NASCAR gathered up all those individual TV rights and went to the negotiating table armed with a racing package. When all was said and done, Fox/FX secured the first half of the Nextel Cup season while NBC/Turner got dibs on the second half of the schedule. Glover says there have been discussions about separating the Nextel Cup and Busch Series in the next TV package. The two series have been attached at the hip in all other previous contract negotiations. ESPN is seriously interested in the Busch Series. “It is one of the things that’s being talked about and looked at,” Glover said. “That is one of the things we are discussing — maybe not all the Busch Series races being on a single network. But let’s put that into context — we talk about a lot of things during the negotiating process. It is our hope and belief, and we still think we will end up with packages very similar to what we have now.”
Currently, Fox and NBC televise the Daytona 500 on alternating years, but apparently Fox apparently wants to make the race an annual fixture on its broadcast schedule. “That is something being talked about,” Glover said. “On one hand it would be good to have same partner for that race every year. On the other hand, the race has been very successful in NBC’s Olympic years. Again, that’s something being talked about. We have to see where it goes.”
Unless CBS or ABC comes rushing in with a surprising 11th-hour bid, the next NASCAR TV contract will look much like it does today.(in part from the Daytona Beach News Journal)(8-1-2005)
