The Complete 2025 NASCAR Cup Series TV Schedule
What’s Happening? Ahead of a change-filled 2025 season, NASCAR officially released its 2025 TV Schedule and where to watch on Wednesday….
Yesterday, NASCAR released the 2025 TV Schedule. While the total number of races on streaming, cable, and network TV was already public, the visual of just how many races would be available was interesting to analyze. Here’s one important thing to look out for in 2025.
What’s Happening? Ahead of a change-filled 2025 season, NASCAR officially released its 2025 TV Schedule and where to watch on Wednesday….
What’s Happening? NASCAR officially announced their next media rights deal in Nashville on Wednesday. The 7-year deal features two new…
With the 2025 season looming, NASCAR needed to make changes. These changes, however, were not to tires, packages, or qualifying, as NASCAR’s media rights deal expired at the end of this season.
Rumors raged for several months about what would happen. For 2025, the consensus was that a streaming platform, alongside a new cable channel, would join NBC and Fox.
When NASCAR officially announced its new media rights deal on Nov. 29, 2023, these rumors were confirmed. As part of the 7-year, $7.7 million contract, TNT and Amazon Prime joined the current partners for the 36-race NASCAR Cup Series Schedule.
Furthermore, practice and qualifying will move to Prime for the first half of the season and to TruTV and Max for the second half of the season. However, Fox retained practice and qualifying coverage for the Daytona 500, All-Star Race, and the Clash.
While this shook up the TV schedule quite a bit when NASCAR released the official schedule Wednesday, the new look for NASCAR broadcasting became a reality.
Despite the priorly mentioned changes, the new TV schedule, bunched together, looks like this:
Notably, fans will have to have both cable and streaming to watch at least 30 of the 39 NASCAR Cup Series events in 2025. The most drastic change is to the availability of network or “free” TV races in 2025.
This season, NASCAR had 20 races on network TV, Fox, and NBC, down one from 2023. However, this was due to a downpour in Los Angeles bumping the Clash up one day and on to FS1. Next year, this number drops to Nine.
While Fox is keeping key races on network TV, NBC is cutting the playoffs from five races on network TV to three in 2025.
What’s Happening? There are few things more important to NASCAR than TV ratings. TV networks are largely responsible for funding the…
While making up slightly over half of all races in 2025, 51.282%, network TV races made up 62.777% of NASCAR’s 110.685 million viewers. Furthermore, according to our 2024 TV tracker and 2023 comparison, network TV was up 12.683% in 2024, with its average viewership per race up 9.601%.
These numbers say what everyone already knows: Racing on the big networks is extremely important to viewership. However, it is equally important to get new eyes on a race. While ratings were up 1.210% in 2024, that 110.685 million viewers could drop off with this new TV deal.
So, should fans be worried? From the NASCAR perspective, this risk, while it could limit NASCAR’s viewership, gives the sport a fresh start with a new and returning partner.
For some time now, fans have complained of a stale product on Fox and NBC. NBC refreshed earlier this year, with Leigh Diffey taking over play-by-play duties. But the overall refresh from Prime and TNT might be what fans want in 2025.
How this drop-off in network races will affect NASCAR is unknown right now. But when the numbers roll in, fans could be pleasantly surprised. Much like this year, we at the DailyDownforce plan to keep up with this, and when 2025 is over, this topic might return to the forefront.
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It wouldn’t be Daytona without some weird, wacky, and headline-grabbing fallout. From viral Victory Lane moments to renewed debates about driver approval, NASCAR’s biggest race once again delivered more than just on-track drama. And with Michael Jordan celebrating a Daytona 500 win, the spotlight burned brighter than it has in years.
Jordan’s presence mattered. When the most iconic athlete of a generation shows genuine emotion upon winning the Daytona 500, it reminds the wider sports world that this race still matters. That kind of authentic publicity cannot be manufactured. It resonated far beyond the garage. Meanwhile, the O’Reilly Series race added fuel to another ongoing debate. The massive Decker crash, Cleetus McFarland’s Truck debut incident, and past approval inconsistencies have once again raised tough questions. Consistency, transparency, and accountability are now front and center. Add in Austin Hill’s dominance and Ryan Ellis’ career-best sixth-place run to open the season, and Daytona gave fans plenty to talk about on and off the track.
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On May 12, 2000, the NASCAR world arrived at New Hampshire International Speedway expecting another race weekend. Within hours, Adam Petty was gone. His death would become the first domino in an 18-month stretch that forever changed NASCAR’s approach to safety and reshaped the sport at its core.
Adam wasn’t just the grandson of Richard Petty or the son of Kyle Petty; he was a young driver building his own path, fresh off his Cup debut at Texas Motor Speedway and preparing for a future with Dodge and Petty Enterprises. His passing stunned the garage and deeply impacted fans who saw the Petty family as part of their own. From the unanswered mechanical questions to the emotional aftermath that eventually led to the creation of Victory Junction, this is where the Firestorm begins. The fear, the controversy, and the transformation of NASCAR safety all trace back to that Friday in Loudon.
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The O’Reilly series race at Daytona turned into a breaking point. One crash, one late reaction, and suddenly the conversation wasn’t just about race results, it was about standards, accountability, and who truly belongs at this level of NASCAR competition.
The Decker incident reignited long-standing perception issues, especially when outside commentary from figures like Mike Davis amplified the embarrassment factor. At the same time, NASCAR has stepped in before, blocking Wallace, sidelining others like Jennifer Jo Cobb, yet those interventions feel inconsistent. Wright’s pit road mistake added fuel to the argument that funding can outweigh readiness. McFarland, meanwhile, represents a different case, raw but potentially coachable, with time to develop if he chooses that route seriously. Money has always shaped racing careers, but when sponsorship outweighs preparation, the sport risks its credibility. Should NASCAR tighten its standards, or is this simply the cost of doing business in modern motorsports?
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