Nascar to launch US$1m in-season tournament on TNT Sports in 2025 – BlackBook Motorsport

Nascar will launch an in-season tournament with a US$1 million prize in 2025.

Confirmed:

• The TNT Sports portion of next season will air an in-season tournament
• Prior three races on Prime Video will set the seeding for the tournament
• Drivers will compete head-to-head with the higher driver advancing to the next round over the course of five races

Context:

An in-season tournament is the latest step from Nascar to spice up the regular season away from the jeopardy of the playoffs, with the National Basketball Association (NBA) seeing great success from a similar experiment this season. This tournament falls hand in hand with Nascar’s new seven-year media rights deal running between 2025 and 2031 with NBC, Fox, Amazon and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD).

Prime Video and TNT will evenly split a series of ten mid-season Cup Series races, now headlined by this new tournament. Both also own exclusive rights to select practice and qualifying sessions in the Cup Series through the 2031 season.

Comment:

“With the launch of our new media rights partnerships in 2025, we were excited to partner with Prime Video and TNT Sports to collaborate on fan engagement concepts that drive story lines in our sport and innovation from a production perspective,” said Brian Herbst, senior vice president for media and productions at Nascar.

“Having head-to-head driver matchups for each one of TNT’s Nascar Cup Series races will add a compelling fan engagement element across media platforms like TNT, Bleacher Report, House of Highlights and Nascar digital platforms.”

Coming next:

Nascar is already halfway through its programme of regular season races, which means the traditional All-Star break is next up on the schedule. North Wilkesboro Speedway will host the All-Star Race for the second year running, this year taking place on 19th May.

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