Until 2001, race tracks struck individual agreements with networks to broadcast races, but NASCAR wanted to capitalize on the growing popularity of the sport and announced in 1999 that television contracts would now be centralized; that is, instead of making agreements with individual tracks, networks would now negotiate directly with NASCAR for the rights to air a package of races.
Contract overview 2001–2006: Fox, NBC, Turner Sports On December 15, 1999, Fox Sports, FX, NBC and Turner Sports agreed to pay $2.4 billion for a new six-year television package, covering the Winston/Nextel Cup Series and Busch Series schedules.
Fox and FX would be responsible for covering the first half of the season. All Busch Series races during that part of the season would also be on Fox/FX. NBC and Turner would partner to cover the second half of the season, which beginning in 2004 would include the Chase for the Cup. Originally, Turner's broadcast outlet for its NASCAR coverage was to be TBS as it had been for every other race Turner had broadcast before. However, Turner Broadcasting opted to rebrand its sister network TNT as a drama-heavy network and decided to move the NASCAR coverage there in March 2001 as they felt it fit the new branding better. As part of the new contract, the Daytona events were split evenly between the networks. Fox would air the Daytona 500 in every odd numbered year during the contract, with NBC covering the then-Pepsi 400 those years. NBC would then, in turn, air the Daytona 500 in every even-numbered year with Fox receiving the Pepsi 400. The network in charge of Daytona 500 coverage would also have the rights to air the events during Speedweeks, which consisted of the Budweiser Shootout, Daytona 500 pole qualifying, the two qualifying races held after pole qualifying, and the season opening Busch race.
ESPN retained the rights to the Craftsman Truck Series through 2002 under a separate contract. Beginning in 2003, Speed Channel bought out the rest of ESPN's contract and became the exclusive broadcast home of that series.
Initially, practice and qualifying sessions would alter between Fox Sports Net and FX during the Fox/FX portion of the season and between TNT and CNNSI during the NBC/TNT portion of the season. By the end of 2002, Speed had replaced Fox Sports Net and, due to CNN/SI shutting down in the spring of 2002, a deal was arranged with NBC/TNT to move most practice and qualifying sessions to Speed as well using NBC/TNT's production team and Speed graphics.
2007–2014: Fox, ESPN, Turner Sports Late in 2005, NBC announced that they no longer wanted to carry NASCAR races on their schedule. ABC/ESPN took the opportunity to regain the series. On December 12, 2005, NASCAR announced its next TV contract: eight years, $4.8 billion with Fox/Speed Channel, ABC/ESPN, and TNT. This time, the deal bundled the Camping World Truck Series in with the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series: Fox broadcast the first 13 Cup races along with the Sprint Unlimited every year, including the Daytona 500. The package ran through the first weekend in June and (usually) the race at Dover International Speedway. Due to schedule adjustments, the package ended in 2010 with the Coca-Cola 600 and in 2011 with the spring Kansas race. TNT, which split from former partner NBC, continued with the following six races at Pocono, Michigan, Sonoma, Kentucky, Daytona (Coke Zero 400), and Loudon. The Coke Zero 400 was presented with limited commercial interruptions until 2013. The Kentucky race replaced the race at Chicagoland Speedway in 2011. ESPN networks broadcast the remainder of the Cup schedule, beginning at the Brickyard 400; From 2007 to 2009, ABC carried coverage of the last race before the Chase at Richmond and all Chase for the Sprint Cup events, although in 2010 (following NASCAR's shift to standardized start times for races), only three races were aired on ABC, and the majority of coverage was allotted to ESPN networks. ESPN networks held exclusive rights to the Nationwide Series across the entire season, with races on ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC. Speed Channel moved two of its Camping World Truck Series races to Fox from 2007–09; usually, they were scheduled to be the California race and the spring race at Martinsville. From 2010 to 2013, all CWTS races were on Speed; Fox returned to the series in 2014 with its telecast of the Talladega race. Qualifying sessions for Sprint Cup races aired on Fox for the Daytona 500, Speed/FS1 for the next 18 races, and alternating between Speed/FS1 and ESPN/ESPN2 for the remaining 17 races. NASCAR Cup Series practice sessions were broadcast by Speed/FS1 for the first 19 races and alternated between Speed/FS1 and ESPN2 for the remaining 17 races. Speed/FS1 was guaranteed at least one session each weekend during the ESPN portion of the schedule. Nationwide Series practice and qualifying alternated between Speed/FS1 and ESPN2 throughout the entire season. On the pay-per-view front, DirecTV premiered NASCAR Hot Pass at the 2007 Daytona 500. The package consists of four channels, each dedicated to a particular driver with team communications among the driver, crew chief, and spotter. From 2007–08, Hot Pass also had separate lap-by-lap announcers and color commentators for each channel. In 2009 NASCAR Hot Pass became free, although without announcers, and on January 7, 2013, it was discontinued all together.
NBC and FX no longer carried NASCAR as a result. NBC was paying $2.8 billion for six years of Sunday night telecasts of the National Football League starting in 2006. Both the new NFL and old NASCAR deals overlapped in 2006, which forced some postrace coverage at NBC races to air on CNBC. FX stopped airing sporting events from 2006 to 2010. (It did show the ninth inning of a rain-delayed Fox game between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox when it conflicted with the start of the 2008 Subway Fresh Fit 500, as well as other games which overran into the starts of NASCAR races. Beginning in 2010, Fox's MLB games during NASCAR Saturdays were shifted to early in the afternoon.)
The new contracts increased the amount of coverage from each weekend's races. When the 2007 season began, all practices for NASCAR Cup Series races were televised, whereas only the final practice ("happy hour") was carried before. In addition, all Nationwide Series final practices and qualifying sessions were also shown; before, a few qualifying sessions were not seen and only a handful of practices were seen. Most, if not all, truck series time trials are also broadcast.
From 2007 to 2010, average race viewership fell from 7.85 million at its height to 5.99 million in 2010, according to the Sports Business Journal.
List of races televised Cup