On December 7, 2005, NASCAR signed a new eight-year broadcast deal effective with the 2007 season, and valued at $4.48 billion,[1] with Fox and Speed Channel, which would also share event rights with Disney-owned ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, as well as TNT.
The rights would be divided as follows: Fox Sports, their corporate sibling Speed, TNT, and ESPN/ABC are in the fourth year of a seven-year television contract scheduled to expire after the 2014 season.
There were also changes in announcing and pit reporters, most notably the moving Dr. Jerry Punch to pit road and IndyCar and occasional Nationwide Series lead announcer Marty Reid to lead broadcaster for the majority of NASCAR broadcasts beginning in 2010, including the Sprint Cup races.
Allen Bestwick, formerly the lap-by-lap announcer for NBC's NASCAR coverage from 2001 to 2004, took over as lead broadcaster for Sprint Cup Series races in 2011.
Case in point: in the November 2009 race in Texas, the vast majority of the broadcast was spent talking about Jimmie Johnson despite the fact he crashed on lap 3 and finished 38th.
In 2010, because of the movement of the Chase races to ESPN and the earlier standardized 1:00 PM ET start times instituted by NASCAR, ESPN moved NASCAR Countdown to ESPN2 for all Chase races starting at 1:00 PM ET to avoid shortening or moving its Sunday NFL Countdown program.
In addition, country superstar Dierks Bentley unveiled a new version of his hit song "Sideways", with new lyrics referencing NASCAR – which is played during the introduction of the pre-race show.
Fox would eventually deploy the banner design across all of its sports properties, while its conventions would be adopted by fellow NASCAR broadcasters, including NBC, TNT, and later ESPN.
Beginning with the Party at the Poconos 400 race on June 9, 2013, TNT's NASCAR coverage switched to a 16:9 aspect ratio letterbox format, though it did retain its on-air graphics package that has been in use since 2007.
ESPN had covered the second half of the Sprint Cup season since 2007 while Turner Sports ended a thirty-one year relationship with NASCAR on TBS and later TNT.
On January 9, 2014, it was confirmed that Steve Letarte would leave his role as Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief at Hendrick Motorsports and join NBC Sports as a color analyst.
While Fox Sports president Eric Shanks justified the changes, noting that it would allow more of the field to be displayed at once and more frequently than the relatively longer ticker, the leaderboard was criticized by viewers during events leading up to the Daytona 500 (such as the Sprint Unlimited, Daytona 500 qualifying, and the ARCA series Lucas Oil 200) for obstructing too much of the screen.
The Camping World RV Sales 301, on July 13, 2014, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, marked the end of NASCAR's 32-year run on Turner Sports, dating back to 1983.
I hope you enjoy today's race.During NASCAR's 31-year run on Turner Sports, the races aired on TBS (1983–2000) and TNT (2001–2014).
Allen Bestwick, who served as lap-by-lap announcer for ESPN's Sprint Cup Series races since 2011, worked his final NASCAR broadcast on network television, marking the end of his role with the network in 29 years covering the sport and remained with ESPN and ABC covering IndyCar races from 2015 to 2018.
[26] This has become a standard tradition at the Southern 500, due to NASCAR designating the race as a throwback weekend where teams bring retro paint schemes to the track.
On September 11, 2015, it was announced that Carl Edwards would be in the NBCSN broadcast booth as a guest analyst for the Xfinity race at Richmond alongside Dale Jarrett and Diffey.
[30] However, the Cheez-It 355 at Watkins Glen International was aired on USA Network due to NBC's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics.
As previously mentioned, during Summer Olympic years (three during the contract, in 2016, 2020, and 2024), NBC will assign different NBCUniversal channels to air races as a result of scheduling conflicts.
[33] In 2020, the Cup Series will take two weeks off to minimize any conflict with the Olympics; the Michigan race will be run on the day of the Games' closing ceremony.
The driver commentators were Kevin Harvick (lap-by-lap), Joey Logano, Clint Bowyer (color analysts), Erik Jones, Ryan Blaney, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (pit road), Danica Patrick and Denny Hamlin (Hollywood Hotel).
[34] On July 24, 2017, it was announced that Dale Earnhardt Jr. would join the NASCAR on NBC broadcasting team for the 2018 season, incidentally reuniting with his former crew chief Letarte.
[35] In November 2017, it was announced that Bob Costas would alongside Krista Voda, co-anchor NBC's pre-race coverage leading into the NASCAR Cup Series finale from Homestead.
[36] In the 2018 season, Fox reintroduced a vertical leaderboard, although this time it was initially occupied an opaque sidebar spanning the entire left side of the screen.
The design was once-again criticized by viewers during events leading up to the Daytona 500, as the opaque sidebar reduced the amount of screen space devoted to race footage to a roughly 4:3 window, the ticker fell within overscan on some televisions, while some camera shots were not correctly framed to suit the new layout.
NBC's pit reporters for 2018 consisted of Dave Burns, Marty Snider, Kelli Stavast, Parker Kligerman (who replaced Mike Massaro following the 2016 season), and Ralph Sheheen, Burns and Snider were with NBC's original NASCAR pit crew, while Massaro joins from ESPN's NASCAR team and Stavast from the network's sports car coverage.
In July 2019, it was announced that Danielle Trotta will join NBC Sports’ NASCAR coverage as host of the “Victory Lap” post-race show for select Cup Series races this year.