![\"NASCAR](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/NASCAR-TV-CBS-O-Donnell-Meet.jpg\")
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell discusses a potential new television deal that could change how fans watch Cup Series races.<\/p>\n
NASCAR CEO Steve O\u2019Donnell plans to meet with CBS Sports head David Berson about moving TNT\u2019s Cup Series races onto broadcast television, according to a report by Awful Announcing<\/a>.<\/p>\n TNT Sports holds five midseason Cup races in the second year of a seven-year deal. Before the Paramount-Warner Bros-Discovery merger closed, O\u2019Donnell already had talked with Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison, whose company now controls both TNT and CBS, about airing or simulcasting races on CBS, according to Sports Media Watch<\/a>.<\/p>\n O\u2019Donnell was asked about the idea Tuesday at a Front Office Sports conference. <\/p>\n \u201cCBS used to be a great partner of ours, Turner has been fantastic, so who knows?\u201d he said, as quoted by Sports Media Watch. \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 He did not call for dropping TNT. Both networks could sendup airing races at some point in the future.<\/p>\n Distributors such as Comcast, DirecTV and YouTube TV pay carriage fees for TNT and TBS partly because those channels carry exclusive events, according to Awful Announcing\u2019s Drew Lerner<\/a>. Puck\u2019s John Ourand reported that nothing is imminent while Skydance and league executives review which events could move. CBS\u2019s PGA Tour telecasts could serve as a lead-in for a Saturday night race.<\/p>\n NASCAR Ratings on Broadcast TV vs. Cable The Cup Series averaged 2.45 million viewers in 2025, the first year of its new media deal, down 14.7% from 2.87 million in 2024, according to Black Book Motorsport<\/a>. The playoffs averaged 1.87 million, the lowest postseason figure on record.<\/p>\n Races that aired on broadcast television in both years gained 3%. Races that moved from broadcast to cable lost 32%, and those that moved to streaming lost 27%, according to Sports Video Group\u2019s ratings data<\/a>. The O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts series, which airs entirely on The CW, averaged 1.03 million viewers in 2025, up 9%.<\/p>\n This year, the five TNT races averaged 2.0 million viewers under Nielsen\u2019s \u201cBig Data + Panel\u201d measurement and 2.1 million under the panel-only method NASCAR now publicizes, up 4%, according to Sports Media Watch<\/a>. The Brickyard 400 drew 2.38 million, the smallest audience in that race\u2019s history.<\/p>\n A late-summer Daytona race on NBC drew 3.51 million viewers under panel-only measurement, according to Sports Media Watch\u2019s ratings tracker<\/a>. The tracks, dates and competition differ, but the gap from TNT\u2019s average is about 1.4 million viewers.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t CBS History With NASCAR and Skydance Ownership<\/p>\n CBS aired the first live, flag-to-flag Daytona 500 in 1979, with many viewers stuck at home by a massive East Coast snowstorm, and remained the race\u2019s television home for 21 years, according to CBS Sports\u2019 Steven Taranto<\/a>. A new rights deal moved NASCAR to Fox, NBC and Turner Sports in 2000.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was one of the great success stories of live sports television,\u201d former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson said, as quoted by CBS Sports.<\/p>\n Berson, CBS Sports president and CEO since 2024, now will lead Skydance\u2019s global sports business, while TNT Sports chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser exits, according to TheWrap<\/a>. His portfolio spans the NFL<\/a>, March Madness, the NHL, Major League Baseball, NASCAR and golf. CNBC reported that he will decide which properties to keep as the combined company works to reduce nearly $80 billion in debt, according to TheWrap.<\/p>\n O\u2019Donnell and Berson have not met yet. Any move depends on carriage agreements that Skydance and the leagues have only begun to examine.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t \n\t\t\tJonathan Vankin<\/a> JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist who covers MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, boxing, golf, and Olympic sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Newspaper and Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering the Olympics, pro baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell discusses a potential new television deal that could change how fans watch Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":933083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-933082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/933083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"NASCAR](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/NASCAR-CEO-Steve-O-Donnell-CBS.jpg\")
GettyNASCAR Chief Executive Officer Steve O\u2019Donnell is looking into a major shift in race broadcasting rights.<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/NASCAR-Michael-McDowell-Carson-Hoecvar-Knucklehead.jpg\")
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