This could prove to be a tumultuous year for Nascar, which would be unwelcome news for a series in need of certainty.
Nascar steps into the first season of its landmark broadcast deal with Fox, NBC, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) and Amazon on unsteady ground, with a lawsuit hanging over the series after months of wrangling regarding the new charter agreement. The majority of teams may have eventually been convinced to sign the deal, but the coalition of Front Row Motorsports and 23XI Racing is taking a stand.
Thanks to a preliminary injunction delivered in December, the two teams are competing as chartered entries in 2025 despite ongoing legal action against the series, a scenario that looked unlikely a few months ago. Nascar’s motions to dismiss the antitrust lawsuit were denied by a judge earlier this month.
On the sponsorship front, Nascar has secured much-needed extensions with primary partners Xfinity and Anheuser-Busch, although the former will be dropping its naming rights deal with the second-tier National Series at the end of this year. Crucially, there is no replacement for Geico in the partnership model as of yet, meaning the series enters 2025 with just three premier partners.
Analysis – What Nascar’s TV, sponsorship and social media data reveals about the series in 2025
Both current and potential sponsors will be closely monitoring the ramifications of both the lawsuit and Nascar’s new media rights deal, which spans four different broadcasters. Viewers will need to navigate six different platforms to watch the full season, while the majority of race weekends will require two subscriptions to follow practice, qualifying and the race.
Between 2015 and 2019, the Nascar audience shrunk from an average of 5.1 million viewers per race to 2.92 million. Since then, viewership has stabilised around the three million mark, with last year’s average audience hitting 2.87 million.
The difference this year will be the introduction of streaming platforms, with Prime Video and TNT Sports’ Max taking a package of five races each. Combined with the drastic reduction in races on commercial television – nine in 2025 compared to 20 last year – and there is a veritable apprehension about the year to come.
This is not helped by Formula One’s increasing efforts to expand its audience in the US, alongside IndyCar’s landmark TV deal with Fox that grants it 19 windows of coverage on the network’s flagship channel.
Increased competition is not what Nascar needs in such a pivotal year.
Editor’s note: Updated on 6th February 2025.