Longtime NASCAR host and pit reporter Shannon Spake will reportedly seek a new home in 2025. Rudy Martzke reports that Fox has let Spake go. This comes amidst major changes to Fox’s NASCAR coverage for 2025.
Worst move: Fox Sports for letting the popular, versatile broadcaster Shannon Spake leave the network. Spake has been the face of NASCAR, along with sideline reporting.
Spake has been a fixture of NASCAR broadcasting for nearly 20 years. She originally joined Speedchannel before moving on to ESPN as a pit reporter from 2007 through 2014. After a year off from NASCAR to fulfill the final year of her contract at ESPN, Spake joined Fox Sports in 2016, becoming the lead host of NASCAR Race Hub and NASCAR Race Day.
The move comes amid much movement in NASCAR broadcasting. With the new media rights contract beginning in 2025, booth and studio talent is either moving on or being recruited by other rights holders. It is unclear whether or not Spake will join any of NASCAR’s other media rights partners, Amazon, Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT), or NBC.
This comes in the wake of Fox scaling back their NASCAR coverage. Starting in 2025, they will no longer broadcast the Xfinity Series and cut their Cup Series schedule back from 18 events to 14, but they will retain the rights to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. After their 2024 NASCAR obligations were up, Fox aired the final episode of NASCAR Race Hub, a daily NASCAR show that was the final remnant of Speed Channel.
Fans were upset to see this, as Spake has been a mainstay of NASCAR on television for many years. However, times change, and Spake is reportedly no longer a part of Fox Sports.
