Dale Earnhardt Jr's new network threatens FOX and NBC viewership as part of NASCAR's $7,700,000,000 deal - Reports

The 15-time NASCAR Cup Series Most Popular Driver award winner Dale Earnhardt Jr is set to return to a newer broadcasting booth in 2025 with TNT Sports and Amazon Prime.

According to reports by Front Office Sports, the existing broadcasting partners Fox and NBC will see a drop in viewership counts once the commencement of the new NASCAR $7.7 Billion Media rights deal in 2025.

NBC, Fox, TNT, and Amazon have agreed to divide the Cup Series race schedule in a seven-year agreement, From 2025, all 38 races will be split between the four broadcasters. The split will be 14 races each for the existing broadcasters and 5 each for the new additions to the deal. However, who will get which Cup Series events is still being processed.

NASCAR's Senior Vice President of Media and Productions Brian Herbst was in a conversation with Front Office Sports who said allocating the events to the broadcasters is a "heavy area of focus internally,". He also added:

"The biggest piece for us on the schedule side is that each one of these partners is going to look for tentpole events, and they’re going to look for new markets".

Major events like Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte and Chicago Street Race which debuted last year turned out to be a massive success in terms of viewership.

According to the Front Office Sports reports, Herbst said he isn't worried about the switch to streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, as early data suggests more NASCAR fans are subscribed to Prime than the cable network.

Even NASCAR's new surge in fans is credited with the debut of 'Full Speed' on Netflix, a docuseries of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. According to the VP of Media and Productions of NASCAR, early data suggested that 88% of viewers who watched 'Full Speed' didn't watch the 2023 Cup Series Championship.

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How NASCAR's 'Full Speed' has impacted the surge in fans?

Earlier this year on Jan. 30, Netflix released 'Full Speed', a docuseries akin to the famous F1's 'Drive to Survive'. This offered a sneak peek behind the scenes of the NASCAR playoff drivers in 2023 such as Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace, and many others. 'Full Speed' was ranked in the top 10 shows on Netflix during the first week of its release.

Since the release of the docuseries, statistics of the surge in social media followings were shown by a journalist on X within the first 30 days.

However, the popularity of the sport solely didn't depend on the Netflix series. Numerous other factors like advertising, branding, the quality of the races, and the drivers also played a pivotal role in NASCAR's increase in popularity.