Dale Jr. Reveals Prime Video’s Greatest Edge That FOX Can Never Match in NASCAR

It all goes back to that fateful signing back in 1999. We’re not talking about a driver joining a team. It’s about NASCAR signing FOX as one of its broadcasters. While the Daytona 500 is remembered as the day we lost Dale Earnhardt Sr., it was also the day FOX made its debut in the sport, and in the two decades that followed, they brought incredible changes. Remember the Ghost Car that made lap-by-lap comparison easier? Or the Digger Cam, with the unofficial Gopher mascot? Yet beneath the gloss, a festering tension emerged: the relentless sacrifice of green-flag racing for commercial breaks. And with Prime Video’s entry into the sport, Dale Jr. sees a new competitor, one that can outshine FOX.

Let’s be real. When FOX’s broadcast leg ended this year, fans couldn’t be any happier. In the Talladega travesty, FOX cut to ads with six laps left as William Byron and Kyle Larson dueled at 200 mph. Drivers like Christian Eckes blasted the move on social media: “Commercials at Talladega with 6 laps to go is insane work“. With Prime’s entry, everything changes.

Speaking about it, Dale Earnhardt Jr. explained, “That was the big thing. You know, fans have been craving for a post‑race show—a pre‑race show too, to some degree. But the post‑race show to bring William Byron over, fresh off the stomach punch of finishing second, and having him sit there… I thought Carl Edwards’ interaction with him was really good because Edwards doesn’t really know William that well. They didn’t really cross paths too much, and it was like Carl was learning this in real time. You could see that. And William handled it really well. To actually have that, and to pull that out of William, was really a huge win for the sport.” 

After his Xfinity victory, Byron was riding the gravy train in the Cup race. But with 50 laps left, the script flipped. Fuel and tire strategy kicked in, and Byron began losing pace. On the other hand, a hard-charging Ross Chastain had made his way up from P40. With just 6 laps left on the board, Denny Hamlin, a lapped car, drove on the inside line. When Byron hesitated to make the move, Chastain seized the opportunity, threading the needle and taking over the lead of the race. It was a gut-wrenching loss for the HMS driver. He had just lost the team’s 13th win at the race. And Edwards was able to bring out the best in that interview.

It’s something Dale Jr. has been asking NASCAR to do for a long time. “The thing that’s going to victory lane and doing the winner interview there often gave us the chance to get second or third place, get a little bit of a post-race built up. I see a ton of fans on our social media begging for more post-race,” he once said.

Outside of this, Prime has given a new level of access for NASCAR fans. As Dale explained, “The great thing about the post‑race is there’s a couple things: there’s something that we call—there’s something that happens before. I tweeted about this. Before we come on air with the pre‑race show, they basically just turn the cameras on and turn the stream on and just capture ambient sounds and video. That may start 10, 15, even 30 minutes before the actual show begins. The stream is up—if you click the thumbnail on Amazon Prime, it puts you in the racetrack: the garage, cameras roaming around, showing you what’s going on. You’re literally seeing everything that’s happening.”

Prime’s most devastating blow to FOX was commercial policy. FOX’s legacy model demanded full-screen ads during green flags—a practice that triggered 63 minutes of ad time during its final Charlotte broadcast. Prime’s double-box format—ads confined to a corner while racing dominated 75% of the screen, slashed ads to just 9 minutes at Charlotte. Alex Strand, Prime’s senior producer, framed it as a moral imperative: “We want to avoid the frustration of… fans missing action.” The contrast was stark: FOX missed Kyle Busch’s COTA battle; Prime aired 62 commercial-free Charlotte laps, igniting social media euphoria.

It might have gotten on the nerves of FOX execs. When Robert Gottlieb, President of Marketing at FOX Sports, spoke a day after the Coca-Cola 600, fans felt there was a sense of envy over Prime Video’s broadcast. “Every season is different – the challenges and opportunities each year are different. We’ve just finished this week, so we have not yet begun to look back, evaluate, and kind of game-plan for moving forward – so that’s still to come. We’ll have to figure out next year. I will say the performance, ratings, and racing we had it was another great season. We’re proud to be the flagship partner of NASCAR, and next year will be an even greater season, and of course, we’ll do everything we can to let folks know how great NASCAR is as well.”

For now, let’s see another Dale Jr. revelation from Prime Video.

Top Comment by KATHYJ

I can’t afford prime so I will be missing racing and that sucks!! Not everybody in retirement can afford it...more

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Dale Jr. talks about his father’s death

In the last few days, the Earnhardt siblings have dropped one big reveal after another. From talking about not being allowed to visit their father’s final resting place because of a threat to revealing deeper sides to their relations with the Intimidator, they did it all on Prime.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. just delivered one of his most vulnerable moments in Prime Video’s docuseries Earnhardt. In Episode 4 (released May 29), he revisited Daytona’s Turn 4, the site of his father’s fatal 2001 crash, for the first time since the tragedy. “I almost hesitate to say this because it isn’t going to make any sense to anybody, but there was this really strange feeling of freedom, and I felt guilty even about feeling that way at all. I felt so guilty. I mean, I’m still in the very beginning of my, hopefully, a long career, and so I kind of decided then and there that I wasn’t gonna hold anything against the track. And if anything, Daytona was maybe even more special because it’s where dad had passed away.”

Simultaneously, Junior unveiled a stunning racing comeback: He’ll revive his iconic 2001 Budweiser/MLB All-Star paint scheme, the same design he raced to an emotional Daytona win months after his father’s death in the August 16 CARS Tour event at Anderson Motor Speedway. The throwback celebrates MLB’s first-ever Tennessee game at Bristol Motor Speedway.

His 2025 racing calendar has been strategically packed: April’s CARS Tour debut at Cordele Speedway, August stops at Anderson and Florence (where he’s co-owner), and October’s Tri-County race sponsored by Sun Drop. Each event fits around his Prime/TNT broadcasting window, proving he’s mastering the balance between booth and grassroots racing. “I’ll see y’all in August,” he teased fans with a promise that sold out Florence last year.