FOX Sports says that the first stage of the NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega led to the network’s highly criticized move to run commercials amid a portion of green flag racing during Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.
Last season, after years of complaints from NASCAR fans, FOX Sports planned to use split-screen, or double-box, commercial breaks during NASCAR Cup Series races during green flag racing.
Now, there were some side notes to this, as, for one, the network would still run its usual breaks during cautions, and, most notably of all, this was only applicable for races on the main FOX network and not FS1.
This year, FOX expanded this plan for all of its NASCAR schedule, including those races on FS1.
While fans adjusted to the change over the past year, this Sunday, with the Cup Series back on FOX for the final time this year, fans quickly noticed, after stage one, a commercial break during green flag racing.
This break came just two laps after stage two resumed, and, just four laps later, the big one happened in turn three, sending FOX to another commercial break.
With complaints rolling in about this abrupt cut at the start of stage two, fans are still wondering what happened to the plan to use split-screen ads all season, and if that is off the table now.
Per Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal, FOX had to take that break after stage one ran caution-free, with the network utilizing split-screens for the entire 98-lap run.
Better yet, the network says they still intend to follow their initial plan of only using split-screen ads during green flag racing for the rest of the season, which amounts to just three more events, all of which are on FS1.
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