Rumor Mill: Are These the Top Candidates For Legacy Motor Club’s Expansion?
What’s Happening? The NASCAR rumor mill is heating up as a new rumor suggests that a former series champion and an…
Recently the NFL did something unprecedented and exclusively streamed a Wild Card Playoff game on Peacock. The viewership numbers show it was a massive success, but, what does it say about NASCAR and its future in streaming?
Before we bring NASCAR into this discussion, we need to first break down the NFL broadcast numbers. According to NBC Sports Press Box, the AFC Wild Card Game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins averaged 23 million viewers, which is a 6% increase from the same time slot one year ago. NBC also boasted that the game was responsible for 30% of Internet traffic, which made it the largest online event ever.
However, there are some caveats to this. The viewership number NBC gave is not simply how many devices tuned in on Peacock. The number combines streaming along with TV viewership in Miami and Kansas City. While most of the country could only access the game on Peacock, fans in both Miami and Kansas City could access it through their local NBC affiliates on free, broadcast TV.
NBC Sports also said that Kansas City pulled in a 45.1 Nielsen rating, or 45.1% of households, which was on broadcast TV. According to Statista.com, around 2.2 million live in the Kansas City metro area as of 2021. If, theoretically, 45.1% of that population watched the game, that means roughly around 1 million people may have watched the game on TV in Kansas City.
Miami is a similar story, with a 14.1 (14.1%) Nielsen rating according to NBC, and roughly 6.3 million people living in the Miami metro area according to macrotrends.net. If, theoretically, 14.1% of Miami residents watched the game, that means roughly 888,000 may have watched it locally on TV.
Those viewership figures are very rough estimates and NOT official at all, but, it shows that potentially around 21 million people around the country may have still tuned in on Peacock. NBC also reported that Peacock had as many as 16.3 million concurrent devices, meaning at least 16.3 million viewers. Any way you slice it, it was a major success for the NFL, even if the overall viewership number is slightly misleading.
So, what does NASCAR have to do with this? Well, it proves that at least one sports league, despite putting a Playoff game behind a streaming paywall to the vast majority of the country, was able to at least tread water with their viewership. This does NOT mean that NASCAR will suddenly bring in 23 million viewers for their first Amazon race in 2024, but, it does give NASCAR some hope.
NASCAR is also on a much more popular streaming partner for 2024. According to Statista.com, Peacock only had 28 million subscribers as of the third quarter of 2023. Amazon Prime has well over 200 million subscribers in a country of just under 332 million people.
Theoretically, the majority of the average population will not have to buy an extra subscription to watch NASCAR in the summer of 2025. It’s all about making sure NASCAR is properly promoted on the platform.
Streaming will probably only get prominent as NASCAR approaches 2025. It will be interesting to see how these types of events perform through 2024 and early 2025 as NASCAR prepares for exclusively streamed races.
Long story short, the NFL’s success proves that NASCAR has the potential to get solid streaming viewership in 2025. NASCAR is going to have more than just one race on streaming in 2025, but, it still has a good chance.
With the NASCAR team Legacy Motor Club set to expand, there are many names in the rumor mill as to who will drive the team’s third car in 2027, but one new name entering the rumor mill could be the biggest surprise yet.
What’s Happening? The NASCAR rumor mill is heating up as a new rumor suggests that a former series champion and an…
During the 2025 season, Legacy Motor Club, which missed the opening to buy one of Stewart-Haas Racing’s three Charters for sale at the end of the 2024 season, was aggressively pursuing a third charter for its NASCAR Cup Series team.
This mission took the team to court, where it battled Rick Ware Racing over a Charter sale gone awry, with hopes of getting this charter ahead of the 2026 season.
While this goal never came to fruition, per a settlement between the two parties, LMC will have a third Charter for 2027, as RWR will sell the charter currently leased to RFK for their No. 60 at year’s end.
Now that all the excitement has leveled off, it’s decision time for LMC, as they search for a driver to fill this new seat ahead of the 2027 season.
The rumor mill concerning this third seat is heating up, as two names floated through the NASCAR community earlier this week, when a post from a well-known rumor mill account listed Riley Herbst and Jesse Love as potential candidates to drive for LMC in 2026.
Herbst, for one, is facing the loss of his ride at 23XI Racing with the rumored (and all but confirmed) promotion of top prospect and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Champion Corey Heim to full-time status in 2027.
Love, on the other hand, seems destined for a Cup Series ride as the reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series Champion, alongside this rumored spot at LMC, could see a spot open up at his current home, Richard Childress Racing, depending on how Kyle Busch’s 2026 season shapes out.
But, not even three races into the 2026 season, the rumor mill is still spitting out potential candidates for this third car.
What’s Happening? NASCAR Hall of Famer and Seven-Time Champion Jimmie Johnson’s Legacy Motor Club is suing Rick Ware Racing over a…
This time, the online rumor mill is heating up for a potential return to the Cup Series, with rumors pointing to former Wood Brothers Racing driver Harrison Burton as another potential candidate to join LMC in 2026.
Burton, the son of former Cup Series standout turned NBC Sports analyst Jeff Burton, most recently raced full-time with WBR in the Cup Series in 2024 before losing his ride at year’s end, moving to AM Racing for the 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, and eventually jumping to Sam Hunt Racing (and Toyota) for the 2026 NASCAR OAP Series season.
While Burton’s return to NASCAR’s second-highest division has not produced any wins, the 25-year-old still maintained a solid effort in 2025, granting AM Racing its first-ever run in the playoffs on points alone.
Much like Herbst, Burton has a winning resume in the OAP Series, and, most important of all, loyal sponsorship, with brands like Dex Imaging sticking with him throughout most of his development, time in the Cup Series, and his return to the OAP Series.
Burton is the type of driver that fits the LMC mold, as, if he were to return to Cup, he would have taken a similar path back to the top that fellow second-generation driver and LMC Cup Series talent John Hunter Nemechek took before landing with LMC in 2024.
A potential return to the Cup Series would also mark an ironic turn in Burton’s career, as he was once a top prospect for Toyota, even making a Cup Series start with the manufacturer before jumping ship to Ford in 2022.
Of course, many fans would say that, given a choice, they would pick Love over Burton, but, then again, LMC may not have a choice, and a driver as experienced as Burton could be a safe bet to get this third team off the ground at the very least.
As always, these are just rumors, and it’s important to note that neither party has expressed plans for the still very, very far away 2027 season. Furthermore, as most NASCAR fans know, even rumors that may seem like a done deal can change at the very last second.
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An email sent by former Joe Gibbs Racing Competition Director Chris Gabehart claims that resentment towards him from members of the Gibbs family made him feel that the future of JGR was a “no-win situation.”
Last week, Joe Gibbs Racing filed a lawsuit against former Crew Chief and Competition Director Chris Gabehart, claiming that the former Daytona 500 Champion had schemed to steal vital information from the team in the lead-up to his departure from JGR for Spire Motorsports.
Not even ten days since JGR filed this lawsuit, the two have continued to trade barbs and accusations back and forth through the court system.
In a filing earlier this week, Gabehart accused the team of misleading him in his duties as competition director in 2025, and specifically calling out JGR’s No. 54 team, driven by Joe Gibbs’ grandson Ty, alleging that the team received “differential treatment.”
Friday, an email sent to JGR CFO Tim Carmichael by Gabehart in November 2025 (released as part of this lawsuit) showed just how uncomfortable he had grown working at JGR during his tenure as Competition Director, with the industry veteran stating that Ty Gibbs and his mother, Heather, held “resentment” towards Gabehart.
The now former Competition Director went on to say in this email that, as the two were the future bosses of JGR, “I’m afraid that leaves me in a no-win situation.”
These exchanges, including the claims made by Gibbs in his filing earlier this week, have swept fans into a whirlwind of sorts, with the two sides even meeting in court today for the lawsuit’s first official hearing.
Of course, Gabehart’s claims about the state of operations at JGR pale in comparison to the accusations made by the Gibbs team in their initial lawsuit.
On Tuesday, the team even added Spire Motorsports, Gabehart’s current employer, as a co-defendant, and requested the court force Gabehart to sit out at least the 18 months since his termination before doing any work in NASCAR similar to his role at JGR.
The team is also asking that any information procured by Spire from Gabehart be returned, though the CEO of TWG Motorsports, which owns Spire, Dan Towriss, told Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports Friday that “Spire doesn’t want data from Joe Gibbs Racing. It doesn’t have data from Joe Gibbs Racing. No point in time has it had data from Joe Gibbs Racing.”
Alongside Spire, Gabehart adamantly denied any wrongdoing in a post to social media last week, saying, “I feel compelled to speak out today and forcefully and emphatically deny these frivolous and retaliatory claims.”
What’s Happening? Former Joe Gibbs Racing Crew Chief and Competition Director Chris Gabehart has filed a new response slamming JGR as…
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A few years ago, I looked at the racetracks preserved on iRacing that no longer exist in real life. After digging deeper, I expected to find one common reason they all shut down. Instead, each one tells a completely different story — from booming cities and land value spikes to ownership changes, broken promises, and even mysteries that still don’t have clear answers.
Some tracks were pushed out by urban development. Some lost the one person fighting to keep them alive. Others faded due to declining support — or were never meant to last forever in the first place. No two closures are the same, and that’s what makes this deep dive so fascinating.
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