What’s Happening?

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Fox, Disney/ESPN, and Warner Bros. Discovery would launch a streaming service in the fall of 2024 for all of the three companies’ sports assets, including NASCAR. Andrew Marchand of The Athletic estimated that this service would cost roughly $50 per month. This is a big deal for sports programming, but, how does this affect NASCAR fans?

• This deal features 2 of NASCAR’s partners in the next media rights deal. Fox will broadcast the first 14 races of the season and Warner Bros. Discovery will broadcast 5 races during the summer on TNT alongside practice and qualifying for the 2nd half of the season on TruTV.
• NASCAR has dipped its toe into streaming with the next TV deal. Amazon will exclusively stream 5 races, which will be a first for NASCAR.
• Fans are not sure what to think about this development. Those who are cord-cutters are excited to see this move, but, others are not sure about the high price.

How Much Will This Cost NASCAR Fans?

When the TV deal was originally released, we broke down how much it would cost to watch NASCAR from 2025 and beyond. The full breakdown can be found in the article below, but, watching NASCAR in 2025 will cost a minimum average of $63 per month for all races and as much as $101.87 per month for races + practice and qualifying sessions.

How Much Will it Cost to Watch NASCAR in 2025?

So, with this new roughly $50 per month streaming service joining the fray that will specifically include NASCAR, how does that affect how fans can consume races? If Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, and ESPN all plan to simulcast every single piece of sports programming they own on this streaming service, it could lower the cost for NASCAR fans.

The reason is that having NASCAR on this $50-per-month platform will negate the need for cable for the first 24 events of the season. Instead of having cable for 10 months, fans would only need cable for the final 4 months of the season. Here is how much it would cost to watch NASCAR in this scenario where every race is on this platform for fans watching at home versus the original scenario we calculated in the article above.

• Races Only
  • Low of: $57 Per Month vs $63 per Month
  • Average of: $66.20 Per Month vs $86 Per Month
  • High of: $66.99 Per Month vs $87.99 Per Month
• Races + Practice/Qualifying
  • Low of: $61.49 Per Month vs $67.50 Per Month
  • Average of: $70.70 Per Month vs $90.50 Per Month
  • High of: $71.49 Per Month vs $92.50 Per Month

In this instance, fans are saving between roughly $6 and $21 per month. Now, for the fans who travel a lot and need streaming services, this is how much they could be spending versus the original scenario where they would need 10 months of cable.

• Races Only:
  • Low of: $63.39 Per Month vs $69.39 Per Month;
  • Average of: $72.59 Per Month vs $92.39 Per Month
  • High of: $73.39 Per Month vs $94.38 Per Month
• Races and Practice/Qualifying:
  • Low of: $70.88 Per Month vs $76.88 Per Month;
  • Average of: $80.08 Per Month vs $99.88 Per Month
  • High of: $80.88 Per Month vs $101.87 Per Month

Again, in this scenario, fans are saving between $6 and $21 per month. Taking away cable for 6 months out of the racing season could cause the fans to save money. Obviously, contracts with cable companies are at play, but, working with a company like YouTube TV where fans can cancel anytime solves that problem.

However, there is another scenario to talk about. This would be a difficult scenario for watching NASCAR.

What If Races Are Exclusively on This Platform?

It’s unclear whether or not this would actually happen, but, if Warner Bros. Discovery or Fox wanted to see a race or two exclusively streamed on this platform, that would hurt the wallets of NASCAR fans. Fans who watch the races on cable without streaming would have to fork over $50 once or twice throughout the season to watch races exclusively on a streaming platform, or $100 total, which would add an average of $10 per month to the cost that we calculated in the article above.

Given how the TV deal was marketed, it seems unlikely that this scenario will occur. NASCAR did not move any races from TV to exclusively streaming under the current TV deal. Then again, times have changed, and a provision to move races to streaming may be in the deal, however unlikely it might be.

Overall, this could ultimately save NASCAR fans some money. However, there is a scenario where fans will have to fork over some extra cash for this platform to watch NASCAR races.