Brad Keselowski believes that the TV deals and the emergence of streaming are making NASCAR’s charter negotiations more challenging. On Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast, Keselowski explained to Kevin Harvick how TV and streaming play a role in the charter situation.
“The new TV market, that’s almost changing every day, has kind of put another wrench in that because the more we move off of broadcasts and we move to streaming services and all these other things, the harder it is to get the partners engaged the way we want to get them engaged,” Keselowski said.
“But that comes at a tradeoff because now there’s more money. The streaming services pay the teams or NASCAR more money, and that transcends all the way down to the teams or passes through. …At the end of the day, the conversation is mostly about how do we create a stable platform to where the teams aren’t losing money, specifically how teams that are well-managed don’t lose money. There are well-managed teams that are losing money, and that’s a problem.”
Under the current setup, teams can lose their charters due to poor performance on the racetack or failing to field a car each week. That leads to teams losing money on a yearly basis. Teams want peranaent charters, but it doesn’t look like NASCAR wants to make that happen.
NASCAR to start big TV and streaming deal in 2025
In November, NASCAR announced a seven-year media rights deal with Fox NBC, Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery that will start in 2025. With the agreement, Prime Video and TNT Sports will split a series of 10 midseason races, while NBC and Fox will carry 14 events each.
“Our goal was to secure long-term stability with an optimized mix of distribution platforms and innovative partners that would allow us to grow the sport while delivering our product to fans wherever they are — and we’ve achieved that today,” NASCAR president Steve Phelps said at the time.
“NASCAR has been a cornerstone property for both new and established platforms for several decades. These agreements demonstrate the staying power of our sport and the consistent, large-scale audience it delivers. This landmark deal underscores our collective growth opportunity to drive engagement across this diverse collection of platforms — whether on broadcast, cable or direct-to-consumer. With the talented young drivers, exciting new teams and record-breaking racing we’ve seen since the Next Gen car was introduced in 2022, we’re looking forward to working with each of these partners to bring some of the best racing in the world to fans everywhere.”
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