One of the biggest stories of the silly season has been the massive TV deal NASCAR has signed recently. It is reportedly worth $7.7 billion and will include 4 media partners. Alongside FOX and NBC, Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports have joined the fray to include streaming services for the first time for the Cup Series. The deal has its praisers, but as per an eminent insider, it is far too soon to ascertain if it is a good deal.

As per the new deal, FOX Sports will air the first 14 races of the season, followed by Amazon Prime, which airs five races exclusively on its streaming service. The next five races will be broadcast on TNT and the B/R Sports tier on the Max Streaming Service. NBC Sports will have rights to the final 14 races of the season. The Xfinity Series will be aired on CW, and the Truck Series will be broadcast on FOX.

An insider explains team owners’ reactions to the new NASCAR deal

On paper, the deal sounds lucrative. As per the Sports Business Journal, the new media rights deal, which will run from 2025 to 2031, will be worth $1.1 billion per year. This is more than the previous deal, which was worth $820 million a year. As far as veteran NASCAR journalist Jordan Bianchi is concerned, the numbers may be impressive, but there is cause for skepticism.

“You don’t know long term, you just don’t know. Get back to me in 6 years and I’ll be able to tell you but looking at it from this perspective now, I think it’s a win in a really tough market. They got a 40% increase over what their previous number was, that’s not easy to do,” he said.

Jordan Bianchi also revealed the feeling around the deal among team owners, and thankfully for NASCAR, the reaction has been positive. As per the eminent journalist, owners believe that the charter agreement will substantially help the teams financially. He also believes that the streaming services are a huge plus for the sport.

“Talking to team owners on the record and off the record, they’re encouraged by it. There’s a little bit of skepticism among some of them but largely, for the most part, they’re encouraged by it and I think that’s what they like to see and it’s enough of an increase, from the conversation I’ve had, where they feel like they’re going to be able to get enough of a piece of the pie when it comes to charter agreements that’s gonna help them go forward and be more solid,” he added.

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Jordan Bianchi makes a good point. While everything looks quite good and lucrative at the moment, how the deal will pan out over the next seven years is impossible to say. He gave the example of the previous TV deal, which was also touted to be quite positive when it was signed.

How was the previous TV deal received?

The current TV deal that NASCAR has will expire at the end of the 2024 season. The agreement was signed back in 2015, and at the time, with the inclusion of cable services, it was a big deal. Jordan Bianchi explained how it helped out NBC and FOX, but as the contract neared its end, changes needed to be made.

“It’s hard to know long term what this is going to be because I will go back to when the previous contract was signed in 2015. That was a record amount of money and at the time, it seemed like consensus, that was a great deal. NASCAR was getting a bunch of money, they were moving into cable which was, at the time, the thing to be on. And you had a partner in NBC Sports who’s got this new sports network, same with FOX Sports and NASCAR was going to be the backbone for their growth and it made sense,” he said.

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However, times changed since then, and with no streaming service, many people believed that it was doing NASCAR more harm than good. Will the new TV deal be good for the sport in the long run? Let us know what you think.