NASCAR Reveals the Reason Behind Hybrid $1.1 Billion a Year Media Deal After Denny Hamlin’s Greed accusation

NASCAR's Brian Herbst responded to Denny Hamlin's claim of NASCAR being greedy and making the sport less accessible online.

NASCAR Reveals the Reason Behind Hybrid $1.1 Billion a Year Media Deal After Denny Hamlin’s Greed accusation

Denny Hamlin (Via @JoeGibbsRacing/X)

🔍 Explore this post with:

ChatGPTPerplexityGrok AIGoogle AI

NASCAR had previously announced a new seven-year media rights agreement that spanned over seven years. The deal is supposed to run from 2025 to 2031, with its valuation being over $7.7 billion. Although this deal is a substantial jump in revenue compared to the previous years, it came at a cost of less accessible race broadcasts for the fans. As such, JGR veteran Denny Hamlin openly criticized this deal.

The 2025 season of NASCAR wasn’t the best in terms of online viewership. Denny Hamlin recently argued that the sport’s greed to earn more money, even if it came at a cost of fan engagement, was the reason behind this sudden decline. As soon as the new media rights agreement came into effect in 2025, the number of viewers dropped. Now, NASCAR’s Chief Media and Revenue Officer Brian Herbst has weighed in on the matter and responded to Hamlin’s comments.

NASCAR has continued to grow in global demand and popularity. However, the numbers showcase a different story. Speaking on the recent media rights agreement, Brian Herbst noted that the sport looked at the content landscape and consumption patterns that were changing. Herbst recalled that over a decade ago, cable TV was present in more than 100 million homes at its peak.

Brian Herbst noted that NASCAR still remained a strong anchor property in the cable ecosystem. As such, the sport made such a deal which could leverage the advantage of both cable TV and online broadcast with FOX Sports, NBC, and CW as well for all the different categories of NASCAR. Although this deal sounded good in theory, Denny Hamlin firmly believed that it did more bad than good, and reduced the accessibility for the sport.

We looked at a content landscape and consumption patterns that were changing, If you look at the last time we did our TV deal in 2013, cable was in 100 million homes and that was kind of peak cable. We also wanted to make sure that we diversify our content distribution strategy – making sure we had a presence on broadcast TV with FOX and NBC and CW as well (for the Xfinity Series).

Brian Herbst said, as reported by motorsport.com.

NASCAR wants to ‘distribute’ the sport beyond pure cable TV

The American TV market is still predominantly accessed by cable TV, while the other half is consumed digitally via different streaming platforms. NASCAR has continued to grow in numbers, and it needed to broadcast the sport on all available platforms to maximize the growth. As such, Brian Herbst revealed the other reasons behind wanting to switch to a more holistic and distributed viewing experience.

Denny Hamlin
Denny Hamlin (Via @JoeGibbsRacing/X)

Brian Herbst revealed that cable TV was the market where the sport could make more dollars from a financial perspective. Meanwhile, NASCAR also wanted to ensure that the sport was available to be viewed digitally. As such, Amazon, HBO Max, and other streaming platforms were the obvious choice to shift the streaming to the pinnacle of stock racing. The sport wants to distribute the content beyond cable and online broadcast.

Cable was still where most of the dollars were from a financial perspective. And then we wanted to make sure we had some kind of digital streaming element which we were able to do with Amazon and HBO Max as well. We wanted to distribute our content differently beyond just broadcast and cable.”

Brian Herbst added.

The 2025 season of NASCAR has been great in terms of racing action and competition. Some racing venues also witnessed a peak in offline fan attendance. However, if they really want to increase beyond their current markets, NASCAR must take a leap into the unknown. Denny Hamlin has been racing in the sport for over two decades now, and the sport must take some of his feedback into consideration.

Read More: Steve Letarte Exposes Ross Chastain’s Biggest Weakness