As a part of a new deal between ESPN and The CW, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series — which has been lauded by fans the last few years as arguably the most entertaining of the NASCAR national series — will, come summer 2026, have its qualifying and practice sessions viewable as part of a streaming service through ESPN Unlimited.
This adjustment will now pair the preliminaries with other CW programming, such as ACC, PAC-12 and Mountain West College Football, PBR bull riding, PBA bowling and WWE NXT.
What once was available through the CW app for free will not be much longer.
You can imagine what the fan feedback is going to be for this one.
Last week, NASCAR EVP John Probst ruffled many a feather when he suggested that the series had no real identity aside from the name, and it could make sense for it to be a racing series featuring crossover utility vehicles. Last year, NASCAR tested an EV variant of a CUV-looking vehicle, which was met with overwhelming indifference.
His comments, however, were not.
It’s been a tumultuous two weeks or so for the mid-tier series: revelations of how many parts for the NOAPS cars are actually in short supply, only two manufacturers currently participating in it while Ford desperately tries to cater to Porsche 911 enthusiasts who really don’t care about Mustangs, and Toyota campaigning a rebadged BMW that is in its final year of production and is a bit of a stretch at best to be considered for a NASCAR series.
All of that, though, is coupled with the Talladega Superspeedway ARCA Menards Series race last weekend that saw Cleetus “Garrett Mitchell” McFarland narrowly miss out on a win coming to the checkered flag. McFarland, who drew almost 100,000 fans viewing on his website in-car camera alone, being preemptively unapproved for Talladega in the O’Reilly Series after a difficult afternoon at Rockingham Speedway (which bears zero resemblance to Talladega), could have made for quite a storyline heading into the afternoon’s event.
All I can picture is the Pawn Stars meme of host Rick Harrison saying, “Best I can do is a NASCAR executive insulting the new series title sponsor …”.
With the news of fans having to potentially pony up $300 a year to watch qualifying and what limited practice there is for the opening band of most race weekends, it is opening a fresh wound and pouring an entire shaker of Morton Salt into it. For all of the improvements made to the Next Gen NASCAR Cup Series car, those races still have their challenges as far as competition goes, while the NOAPS races seem to hit the perfect blend of race action, variety of winners and broadcast excellence. While the actual race itself is still going to be on The CW (for now), you can see where fans generally assume the direction this series is heading.
Might they be jumping to conclusions?
Not to get all tinfoil-y with the headwear, but given the prospect of nuking everyone’s favorite series with RAV4s, CR-Vs or possibly EVs, then forcing what had generally assumed to be free to a pay for streaming on something the size of your hand (yes, I know you can cast it to a smart TV) is enough to give pause. It’s fair to ask if NASCAR might be purposely trying to quell the love for the Saturday series, removing the comparison to Cup and the struggles the Next Gen continues to have on a variety of tracks.
While NASCAR does have a checkered history of taking one giant leap forward, followed by a three-step drop into head-shaking decisions, this little conspiracy theory isn’t something I feel is realistic. Unfortunately, the reality is this decision fits in the mold of other sports falling victim to the streaming trap, whether it’s Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime, the rumored move of Sunday Night Football to Peacock or Formula 1 being relegated to Apple TV or F1 TV Premium.
It’s a frustrating trend for sure, particularly during a time when the prices of daily necessities are spiking. There’s a cost/benefit analysis that many will come to in short order and refuse to participate in. Some may just leave entirely out of spite.
Could you blame them if they did?
While I straddle the border between Gen X and millennials, my boomer soul and mentality still want the ultimate bundled service: satellite dish and internet. I can tell you that for me, my subscriptions are limited to Amazon Prime as a benefit of online shopping and its summer stretch of NASCAR races. For $300, I can actually go to an O’Reilly race with someone, so given that choice, I’d have to forego bowling and livestock sports in the interim, or 1 a.m. college football games.
Let’s hope things don’t go beyond where they are now with this announcement. Doing anything to affect the positive momentum of any of the series at this critical time would be a colossal strategic error.
Vito is one of the longest-tenured writers at Frontstretch, joining the staff in 2007. He’s been a contributor to several other outlets, including Athlon Sports and Popular Speed in addition to making radio appearances and podcast appearnces here on Stock Car Scoop and Happy Hour. He forever has a soft-spot in his heart for old Mopars, late model Fords, and is generally a warehouse of useless automotive information.
Until very recently, I’ve always been in the camp of paying for one TV package, and being able to get nearly any sports I want. I was always willing to pay a premium for this luxury. But, conventional TV packages continue to increase in pricing, all while the sports landscape continues further fracturing due to exclusive provider agreements. I don’t think this is going to change, and in fact, I think the fracturing will accelerate.
Streaming services recognize exclusive sports offerings can be a huge draw to their platforms. And many sports have determined it’s financially better for them to take larger sums of money in exchange for exclusivity, even if this means less viewers, and becoming more of a niche product. Possibly they will regret this, possibly not. We shall see.
None of this is good for the fan or consumer, but sports leagues and entertainment providers aren’t in this to make everyone happy. They are businesses, and their job is to make as much money as possible.
So, sports fans are left with choices, none of them palatable. Spend more money to get more services, change which sports they follow based upon availability, or just stop watching.
For me, I’ve decided F1 is worth an Apple TV sub, as I can get all F1/F2/F3/Academy races commercial free, for one fee. I can even choose between two sets of announcers for F1 races. Indycar races are in, as I can get them off antenna and DVR them with no fees. I have recently eliminated my access to the truck series and will miss a few Cup races. So be it. There are plenty of other things to do with my time, and if I do want to relax and watch TV, there are plenty of other programs I can enjoy.
I gave up on F1 entirely, just not worth the $. I get the CW affiliate by using an antenna to get the local station in my area, since CE itself only covers the qualifying…which seems dumb to me, but what do I know. I already had Prime, so that wasn’t an issue, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be hijacked into paying $300 a year for the OReilly series, much as I love it. If Nascar got smart, it would get their own channel, show all the series races in one spot. THAT I might put up the for, but with prices soaring and coverage so fractured, things don’t look good.
I hear ya. Though I don’t love the new F1 regs, I still enjoy the ridiculously advanced tech, some of which would not be at all out of place on a military fighter plane. Getting the lower formula series as part of the sub made it a no brainer for me, though I understand we all have our preferences. It is so nice to watch all formula races with no commercial breaks, and rare product placement. Just race coverage, flag to flag.
What you said about O’Reilly is where I’m at with trucks. I enjoy the truck series, but not enough to keep a TV package for it. And I’m not going to pay $20/month for Fox’s streaming service, just to get truck races. If O’Reilly races go streaming only on a service I don’t have, I’ll vote those off the island as well.
I set up my antenna tuner to work with an old computer I have, and paid a one time fee of $250 for a Plex server. That gives me the ability to series record, with full DVR functions. Also, I can watch it on any TV, computer, or phone, in the house. I can even watch via the internet, if I’m away from home. Heck, if I get to the race after it’s been completed, the DVR automatically deletes the commercials for me. It was fiddly to get it working as I wanted, but I love it, and now I pay $0/month for it. That gives me all O’Reilly races (for now), all Indycar races, and most of the cup races I can’t access via the streaming services I have.