NASCAR was hoping to get close to $1 billion per year from negotiations for its next set of media rights deal. It got its wish — and then some.

The racing circuit has announced seven-year broadcast partnerships for its Cup Series with Fox Sports, NBC Sports, Amazon, and Warner Bros. Discovery, set to begin in 2025. 

Along with the CW’s NASCAR Xfinity Series pact, the sum of all the new deals amounts to $7.7 billion, according to multiple reports — a 40% annual increase on what NASCAR is currently receiving from Fox and NBC.

Here’s how the race broadcasts will break down, in order, each season:

• Fox Sports: 14 races (five on Fox, 9 on FS1)
• Amazon: 5 races on Prime Video
• WBD: 5 races on TNT and simulcast on Max’s sports tier
• NBC Sports: 14 races (four on NBC, 10 on USA Network)

Beyond the midseason package, Amazon and WBD will broadcast Cup Series practice and qualifying sessions — the first half of the season on Prime Video and the second half on TruTV and Max. Fox Sports retains rights to the NASCAR Truck Series.

Track Trends

The deals give NASCAR security for the rest of the decade and continues the evolution of top-tier sports leagues toward more exclusively streamed and simulcast broadcasts. Max gets more content for its sports tier, while Prime Video can build on its NFL success with another sports draw.

Notably, as Formula 1 continues to gain more fans in the U.S., NASCAR’s new media deals are worth 13 times the reported value of F1’s U.S. deal with ESPN, which runs through 2025.

Since 2021, the PGA Tour has been rewarding its most engaging stars with tens of millions of dollars in bonus money each year.

However, the lucrative Player Impact Program — which this year paid a record $100 million to 20 golfers — may not survive in the long run.

“Its goal was to help prevent players from accepting high-dollar Saudi offers, LIV offers,” three-time major champion Jordan Spieth said ahead of this week’s Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. But the PIP program “doesn’t really do that,” he said.

Top PGA Tour stars like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Brooks Koepka bolted for LIV Golf last year, and Jon Rahm is rumored to be considering a $600 million offer.

The PIP was originally launched by the PGA Tour to reward players who were making an impact off the course. The program used metrics like TV viewership and social media engagement to determine the most popular players — and therefore who got the biggest paychecks.

For the 2023 season, the top five included Rory McIlroy ($15 million), Tiger Woods ($12 million), Rahm ($9 million), Spieth ($7.5 million), and Scottie Scheffler ($6 million).

It was recently confirmed that players would receive equity in PGA Tour Enterprises, the commercial entity to be formed as part of the framework agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the DP World Tour.

In 2024, the PIP will be cut in half to $50 million for 10 golfers, with the other $50 million going to other player bonus programs like the FedEx Cup. 

“I’m not sure what that will look like after that,” Spieth said. “Hopefully, it won’t need to exist.”

ESPN parent Walt Disney Co. and Turner Sports parent Warner Bros. Discovery are two of the largest and most powerful players in sports media, each enjoying a pervasive presence. 

But in the midst of unprecedented change and heightened programming costs across the entire media landscape, leaders of both companies are openly lamenting the economic challenges sports are placing on their respective operations.

Speaking separately on Wednesday at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, Disney CEO Bob Iger and WBD CEO David Zaslav each acknowledged that managing their sports media operations has grown significantly more complex.

“I love the sports business,” Zaslav said. “But the only product that we rent at Warner Bros. Discovery is sports. And when you rent a product, it’s always hard. When we do something great with ‘Lord of the Rings,’ it belongs to us. When we do something great with sports, we get to enjoy it and benefit from that until the deal is up. And when the deal is up, you get new rent.”

Zaslav has previously balked at the notion of extending at nearly any cost its NBA relationship of more than four decades, and was again measured on the subject as negotiations continue.

“We’re talking to Adam now,” Zaslav said, referring to NBA commissioner Adam Silver. “In the end, it has to make economic sense.”

Mouse House

Iger struck a somewhat similar tone as Disney continues pursuing efforts to sell a portion of ESPN to a strategic partner, a process carrying some uncertainty.

“People love sports, and we have an unbelievably unique position in the world of sports,” Iger said. “We want to stay in that business. It is a healthy business for us today, and it will continue to be … But like our other businesses, it has relied on a business model that is not as robust as it used to be.”

When questioned about the recent assessment of LightShed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield — who said that ESPN has an existential conflict of its programming costs rising faster than revenues — Iger flatly disagreed.

“I like him, but I’m not getting advice from him right now,” Iger said. 

Competitive sailing isn’t exactly the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. or a magnet for celebrity investment. But a group of prominent figures from sports, entertainment, and technology have combined to buy a team — and in the process set a new record for the sport.

The U.S. team of international sailing competition SailGP has been acquired by a group led by Uber Technologies Inc. executive Ryan McKillen and world champion sailor Mike Buckley.

But the pair are joined by former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry, pro boxer Deontay Wilder, former U.S. men’s national soccer team player Jozy Altidore, actress Issa Rae, serial tech entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, and NFL players DeAndre Hopkins, Malik Jackson, and Roquan Smith.

Financial terms were not disclosed, but reports suggest the deal far exceeds — and perhaps nearly doubles — the $40 million valuation placed on SailGP’s Great Britain team late last year. 

The investment is designed to capitalize on the rising prominence of SailGP, a global league centered on high-tech catamaran racing. Founded in 2019 by billionaire tech titan Larry Ellison, SailGP has since made a steady push toward mainstream acceptance, a process that should only accelerate with the new U.S ownership team.

“We recognize the growth trajectory of SailGP and how our U.S. SailGP team can introduce the future of on-water racing at the highest level,” McKillen said.