NASCAR has finalized its biggest TV deal ever.
The rights package, worth an estimated $4.5 billion over eight years, was announced Wednesday. It is with three separate media giants–Disney (ABC-ESPN), News Corp. (Fox) and Time Warner (Turner)–and includes their various networks, cable channels, Internet sites and even mobile phone programming.
It begins in 2007 and extends through 2014.
The annual total of nearly $560 million is about a 40 percent increase from the current deal, worth about $400 million a year, which expires at the end of 2006.
NBC is the only current participant that won’t be in on the new package.
From the fans’ perspective, the season will be more simplified and consistent. Fox will keep the first 13 races of the season, ABC-ESPN will take the last 17 and TNT will air six races in midsummer.
ABC will carry all 10 Chase for the Nextel Cup races in autumn, which will be the first consolidation of the entire playoff package on one major network. ABC-ESPN will air the entire Busch Series schedule. Speed Channel–a cooperative of Fox and other investors–will carry all Craftsman Truck series races and the Nextel Cup all-star race.
Essentially, not a wheel will turn in racing–practice or qualifying–without being aired live somewhere on cable or satellite. And ESPN promises vast expansion of ancillary NASCAR programming throughout the week.
That’s the most significant aspect of the return of the now-merged ABC and ESPN, two networks widely credited with milestone telecasting of NASCAR.
ABC was the first network to air big-time stock car racing regularly, on its “Wide World of Sports” program in the 1960s. ESPN’s live telecasts in the 1980s did much to bring NASCAR to mainstream public attention.
ESPN lost out in the 1999 bidding for the current contract. But ultimately, NASCAR lost considerable exposure via related programming on ESPN’s various channels.
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Now NASCAR and its fans stand to benefit from what ABC-ESPN called “a vast amount of content that will fuel ESPN International and ESPN’s extensive multimedia outlets” in addition to live telecasts of 17 Nextel Cup races plus the entire Busch Series schedule.
“This agreement totally embraces NASCAR’s multimedia future,” said George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports and co-chairman of Disney Media Networks.
“NASCAR is a strong and growing property, and the ESPN of the 21st Century–an array of new media platforms and content outlets reaching fans wherever and however they consume sports–will take the sport to even higher levels of exposure and growth.”
Fox has been recognized as an innovator in NASCAR production, especially in graphics. In light of that, Fox Sports President Ed Goren said, “We look forward to pushing the production envelope even further as we move forward.”
NASCAR Chairman Brian France called finalization of the agreement “a historic moment for the entire NASCAR community. This is a major accomplishment for the NASCAR drivers, teams and track operators who have made this sport what it is today.”
The package “is also good for the fans because they will have so much more NASCAR content from a variety of media and new media sources,” France said.
Said Bodenheimer:
“ABC Sports first exposed sports fans to the racing excitement of NASCAR in the 1960s, and ESPN and the sport grew up together in the 1980s and ’90s. Our tradition is rich, and our future is bright. To NASCAR, its drivers and fans, we say, `Welcome home.'”
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