NASCAR: Dale Jr.’s return race confirmed for 2025 Cup season

NASCAR: Dale Jr.'s return race confirmed for 2025 Cup season

As a seasoned gamer who has lived through decades of racing games and real-life NASCAR seasons, I must say that this new broadcast schedule for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series feels like a thrilling race track of its own. The seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal is shaping up to be an exhilarating ride with familiar faces and fresh blood behind the wheels of commentary.

The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series broadcast schedule has been announced, marking the beginning of a brand-new, seven-year agreement worth $7.7 billion. This deal includes existing partners like Fox Sports and NBC Sports, as well as newcomers Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports.

For the first 18 events of the season, Fox takes charge, while the last 20 events, which include the full four-round, 10-race playoffs, are managed by NBC. Additionally, they both handle two exhibition races each.

In the upcoming year, it’s expected that both Fox and NBC will reduce their race coverage to a total of 14 events. For Fox, these races will continue to be distributed between Fox and Fox Sports 1. Similarly, NBC’s races are anticipated to be broadcast on NBC and USA Network. Notably, starting from 2022, the now-defunct NBC Sports Network has been replaced by the USA Network for their race coverage.

Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports are each set to be responsible for five races as well.

During the mid-year period, Amazon and TNT will have their turns to broadcast, with Fox starting things off at the beginning and NBC concluding at the end.

On Fox’s 2025 schedule, the last race is the All-Star Race held at North Wilkesboro Speedway, which takes place on Sunday, May 18. This event is one of two exhibition races and is the second one in the schedule.

On Sunday, May 25th, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will finally reappear in the broadcasting booth for the Coca-Cola 600 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

After retiring from full-time NASCAR Cup Series racing at the close of the 2017 season, the 15-time Most Popular Driver Award recipient transitioned to the NBC Sports broadcast booth, teaming up with lead announcer Rick Allen, along with color commentators Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte.

However, following his sixth year as a commentator for NBC in 2023, he revealed that his contract had ended, and a return for the 2024 season was not certain. Surprisingly, he didn’t come back at all in 2024; instead, he decided to join both Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports in 2025.

In this upcoming event, Adam Alexander will take on the role as the primary commentator, while Letarte will team up with Earnhardt as a panel expert.

NBC Sports and Fox still need to finalize their broadcasting lineup for the 2025 season, as NBC recently moved Leigh Diffey from IndyCar coverage to the NASCAR side due to IndyCar moving to Fox in 2025. NBC wanted to ensure they didn’t lose one of their top talent from the IndyCar team early on.

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