The jockeying from TNT Sports properties to make their way to CBS following the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery has officially begun.<\/p>\n
At a Front Office Sports conference on Tuesday, NASCAR CEO Steve O\u2019Donnell revealed he plans to meet with David Berson, now the head of the combined CBS-TNT sports division, to discuss the possibility of airing races allocated to TNT Sports on the CBS broadcast network. TNT Sports airs a package of five NASCAR Cup Series races each summer and recently concluded Year 2 of a seven-year pact with the motorsport circuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cCBS used to be a great partner of ours, Turner has been fantastic, so who knows?\u201d O\u2019Donnell said, per Sports Media Watch<\/a>. \u201cI think it\u2019s an opportunity for us, especially as you look forward, to keep everybody close, but we\u2019re very happy with the folks we currently have for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n CBS has a storied history with NASCAR dating back to 1960, though the network last aired a race in 2000.<\/p>\n Of course, whether TNT\u2019s races are either shifted over or simulcast on CBS in the future is largely out of NASCAR\u2019s hands. Those decisions, at least in the near-term, have to be made within the confines of TNT\u2019s distribution deals with pay-TV providers like Comcast and DirecTV. Those agreements guarantee certain types of premium programming, like NASCAR races, air exclusively on TNT.<\/p>\n Those agreements wouldn\u2019t make NASCAR moving to CBS impossible, however. As Awful Announcing contributor and former Fox Sports Networks president Bob Thompson explained earlier this week<\/a>, the \u201cGrant of Rights\u201d present in distribution contracts are somewhat malleable. When a network adds new rights, it can invoke a \u201csurcharge\u201d clause that forces distributors to pay more to carry the channel. Conversely, when a network loses rights, distributors can claw back some of the carriage fee they agreed to pay.<\/p>\n