When the NASCAR Xfinity Series takes the track this coming Saturday (Sept. 14) at Watkins Glen International, the race will air on USA Network, a part of the NBC family. It will be the final Xfinity race under the NBC umbrella, a relationship that has continued each year since 2015. The series will move on the CW beginning at Bristol Motor Speedway (Sept. 20), where it will make its home through 2031. I see many pros, and some minor cons, to this monumental change.
NBC and FOX have split the series every season, in line with their NASCAR Cup Series split since 2015. Starting next year, the Xfinity series will spread its wings and go out onto a different network, where it seeks to make a good home for years to come and develop a standalone identity that it really hasn’t ever had before.
For the last nine years, the NBC family of networks has done a respectable job broadcasting the series. They’ve seemed superior to other networks in their production, direction and on-air talent performance. They’ve often used the same top-level talent for their Cup and Xfinity broadcasts, showing a true dedication to the second series along with the premier series.
Having the second half of the season has allowed NBC to show us the playoffs and the championship battles, and they’ve brought us incredible moments. Here are a few we can look back on fondly.
2023: Austin Hill vs. Sheldon Creed at Martinsville
This one is still fresh in our minds, as the teammate rivalry that cost Richard Childress two championship berths.
2022: Noah Gragson bests Creed and Kyle Larson at Darlington
Creed has a flair for the dramatic. This was one of the best finishes we’ve seen — the underdog against the championship contender and the elite talent “Buschwacker.”
2021: Brandon Brown‘s Upset at Talladega Superspeedway
A race that has become a bit infamous due to Brown’s post-race interview. Brown was one of the biggest upset winners we’ve seen in the last decade, driving for his family-owned team.
2020: Chase Briscoe Scores Ninth Win of the Season
Briscoe called his shot, claiming he needed to win eight races to earn a Cup series ride. He went on to do one better.
2019: Tyler Reddick Outduels Cole Custer and Christopher Bell for Title
In scoring his second consecutive championship, Reddick delivered Richard Childress his most recent title. This was the year of the “Big Three.”
2018: Ross Chastain‘s First NASCAR Win
A gradual climb from backmarker to contender reached a crescendo when Ross Chastain scored his first NASCAR win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, driving for Chip Ganassi Racing.
2017: Jeremy Clements‘ Upset at Road America
Likely a bigger upset than Brown’s Talladega victory because of how unexpected it was and where it occurred. The win was one of just two top 10s for Clements during the entire season.
2016: Daniel Suarez Captures Title
Does it seem hard to believe this was 8 years ago? Suarez held off Elliott Sadler to win the title, and earned a promotion to the Cup series after Carl Edwards‘ surprise retirement.
2015: Paul Menard Wins at Home Track
This was Menard’s final win in NASCAR, and it came at his home track. Menard had a total of three career wins in Xfinity and one in Cup.
There have been a lot of great moments covered by NBC over the years. The Xfinity Series has been praised by many fans for having the best racing product among the top national series, but will going to the CW be a positive change? Can it do the series justice?
What would define a positive change? Well, being available to as many people as possible would be a good start. The CW boasts a 99.8% household availability rate. The network can be accessed through over-the-air television, meaning anyone with as little as a set of functioning rabbit-ears can receive the channel through the air for free. So availability to fans is going to be as good as it’s ever been.
Some Xfinity races have run on the major networks of Fox and NBC, but more often they were seen on networks like Fox Sports 1, the now-defunct NBC Sports Network and more recently, USA. Those networks do have a wide reach, but not as wide as CW, and they require a paid cable subscription, whereas the CW does not.
“For the first time in series history, every NASCAR Xfinity Series race will be available on free, over-the-air broadcast television with additional content available through The CW’s digital platforms.” as reported in the official NASCAR press release last year.
So, from an availability perspective, and a cost to fans perspective, the CW is an undisputed improvement for the series.
What else will determine whether this will be a good move?
It might not matter much to fans, but the numbers of the agreement are important to the teams, drivers, sponsors and health of the overall sport. The deal was reportedly worth $115 million per year, which is a sizable increase over what was earmarked for the series on the previous television agreements. Increased TV revenue for the series should mean more royalties for the teams, making it easier to get to the track each week.
Looking deeper, this could mean teams have reduced dependence on drivers bringing sponsorship. Over the years that model has gone from frequent to nearly exclusive. Any reduction to a team’s survival depending on a funded driver seems to be a good thing for the sport. We all want to see the best drivers work their way up the ranks, not just the drivers with the most money. I’m not saying this deal will eliminate that dilemma, but any improvement should be welcome.
One Xfinity team owner was very impressed after meeting the CW team back in May of this year. Alpha Prime Racing owner Tommy Joe Martins had this to say about them.
Martins’ emphasis of “THE priority” is a very succinct way to summarize something that has a lot of aspects. It is true that the CW is a lesser-known network than NBC, Fox, CBS or ABC, but it’s gotten more involved in sports in recent years, and the Xfinity Series is still a very big deal to them. They’ve made a huge investment to have it, and the feeling for Martins here seems to point out a logical conclusion: the Xfinity Series will be a bigger fish in the smaller pond of the CW.
This could present a lot of potential benefits for drivers, teams, and fans alike. Under the current agreement, one of the most cringeworthy features is the tendency to shift the broadcast from one network to another when races run long. As we know, races can often run long due to weather or a lot of laps run under caution. The last thing we want to do is switch channels midway through, especially for those of us with busy lives who record the race to watch later.
I’ve had to begin recording every single episode of Law and Order: SVU on USA Network in an attempt to catch races that get shifted from NBC to USA unexpectedly. With the CW, that should not be a problem.
As it stands today, Xfinity practice and qualifying are often relegated to the NBC Sports App as the only place to be viewed. This has presented all sorts of problems. Qualifying is often some of the best TV some teams get all weekend. When it is exclusive to a somewhat obscure app, nobody is seeing those drivers or teams. More visibility should be an obvious positive for all involved.
Another thing that has drawn increasing criticism lately is the mid-afternoon start times we so frequently see. We don’t have the times for 2025 available yet, but at the CW we may have our best chance in a while to see earlier start times. That would be crucial when rain delays occur at tracks without lights, or when we just have other things to do in our lives. If you’re at the track, it means you can see the race and go grab dinner at a local establishment, supporting the local economies, instead of just eating at the track.
That’s a lot of positive possibilities. There may be a few negatives — or maybe question marks is a better term. For one, some fans may not even realize they have the CW and might have a hard time finding it. The races will reportedly be produced by NASCAR, which begs the question of how much leeway the on-air talent will have to speak their minds, even if their opinions aren’t always the most in line with the sanctioning body. As with any new network, there may be some glitches or growing pains we need to deal with.
As far as I can tell, the positives of moving to the CW far outweigh the negatives. It appears to be an all-around good deal for the series. It’s been a heck of a run with NBC and FOX. Let’s hope for one last classic race this coming weekend at The Glen. From there, we’re off to the CW, where another chapter will be written for seven-plus years.
About the author
Steve Leffew joined Frontstretch in 2023 and covers the Xfinity Series. He has served honorably in the United States Air Force and and lives in Wisconsin.
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Hope the program guide on Xfinity cable is updated soon. Currently it does not show the race being televised anywhere
I don’t get CW over the air. It will cost me to watch the races. If you are using a dish, I have not found a package that offers it yet. I plan to reconfigure my whole TV watching methods for next year because I need to stream to get 1- of the 38 races next year. I am also not sure how streaming viewership numbers are generated, or even if they are generated. Hard to sell a new sponsor without hard numbers to work with.