NASCAR plans to cut commercials for three races this season. Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal reported Wednesday morning that NBC will show no full-screen commercials during green flag action at Daytona, Atlanta, and Talladega, all superspeedway races. The Comcast-owned network will only show split-screen commercials while on-track action is taking place. This new method will be called “NASCAR Nonstop.” NASCAR and NBC has yet to announce the move, but Stern states how it will be announced this morning. The first race to try this experiment will be this weekend’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.
This continues changes that NBC Sports have put in place for the remainder of the season. Longtime IndyCar announcer Leigh Diffey will replace Rick Allen as the Cup Series play-by-play announcer for the remainder of the season, starting this weekend. Diffey was announced to head to the NASCAR booth earlier this month.
NBC and FOX Sports, NASCAR’s current TV providers, typically mix full-screen commercials with side-by-side commercials during a race, whether it’s under the green flag or the caution flag. Advertisers prefer the side-by-side method to prevent fans from changing the channel or leaving their TV.
It’s unclear how the new format will look for the three races in regards to how many side-by-side commercials there will be and how frequent they will come around. Fans have asked for a change to the commercial model for years. Superspeedways have some of the sports highest viewer counts and, in turn, bring a lot of advertisers. With NBC part of the new TV Deal for NASCAR starting in 2025, this could be a prelude to what NASCAR races will look like on the network for the future.
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