NASCAR’s new $7.7 billion TV rights deal with FOX, NBC, Amazon Prime Video and TNT will run through 2031, but ratings continue to be a major talking point
13:56 ET, 07 Nov 2025Updated 13:56 ET, 07 Nov 2025
Kyle Larson celebrates his 2025 NASCAR Cup Series win(Image: Getty Images)
NASCAR secured a colossal $7.7 billion television rights agreement before the 2025 Cup Series season with FOX, NBC, Amazon Prime Video and TNT covering races through 2031.
While the deal brought NASCAR an enormous financial windfall, audience numbers have continued to decline, potentially due to viewer confusion about streaming access and growing dissatisfaction with the sport itself.
This trend was evident during Sunday’s climactic 2025 Cup Series race in Phoenix, where Kyle Larson claimed his second championship (defeating rival Denny Hamlin) despite never leading a single lap. Hamlin later explained why he attended Larson’s party celebrating the win, while Larson took part in a spontaneous gesture to Hamlin at the Awards Banquet.
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In 2024, 2.77 million viewers watched Joey Logano secure his third championship. Despite the 2025 postseason featuring high-profile drivers like Larson and Hamlin, viewership fell 14% to 2.476 million.
Cup Series finale viewership during the NBC broadcasting period reached its highest point in 2022, when 3.213 million watched Logano claim his second title. NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps appeared unfazed by the decline.
“When the season started, because of the distribution changes to be less broadcast heavy and more cable heavy and streaming, we knew we were going to have a reset,” he stated before Sunday’s championship race.
“We had projected that that reset and told everyone in our industry that reset would be between 14 percent and 15 percent in Cup.”
Amazon’s race broadcasts showed strong performance, drawing an average of 2.16 million viewers across five mid-season events. The Xfinity Series also maintained viewership above one million on average.
NASCAR’s ratings in Phoenix disappointed(Image: Getty Images)
“I think NASCAR and everyone in the industry knew there would be some transition, but we didn’t know what it would be,” driver Brad Keselowski commented on the viewership numbers. “I think we knew there would be a transition with the viewership habits of our fans.
“I will tell you I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of Amazon and streaming races. Conversely, I was disappointed in the races we had on cable and broadcast has not done what we thought it would do.”
Keselowski ultimately came in second for the day, trailing behind Ryan Blaney and just ahead of Larson who secured third place.