For the first time in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, the Cup Series is set to visit a track that hosted a race earlier this year. Atlanta Motor Speedway hosted race number two of the 36-race season back in February, and the since-rebranded "EchoPark Speedway" is scheduled to host race number 18 this weekend as well.
Under NASCAR's previous 10-year broadcast deal with longtime partners Fox and NBC, this coming Saturday night's 260-lap Quaker State 400 around the four-turn, 1.54-mile (2.478-kilometer) Hampton, Georgia oval would have been shown live on NBC (or USA Network, the NBCUniversal-owned alternate channel during NBC's portion of the schedule).
Fox had been responsible for the season's first 18 races (16 points races), while NBC had been responsible for the final 20. But that changed when NASCAR agreed to a new seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal with not only Fox and NBC, but new partners Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports.
To make way for Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports, which are each responsible for five races under this new agreement, Fox's portion of the schedule dropped to 14 races (12 points races) and NBC's also dropped to 14.
Amazon Prime Video's coverage began with the crown jewel Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in late May, and this past Sunday's race at Pocono Raceway was its fifth and final race of the year. Now TNT Sports is set to take over, starting at Atlanta.
Atlanta NASCAR Cup Series race not being shown on NBC
The TNT Sports broadcast booth is the same as Amazon Prime Video's, with Adam Alexander serving as the lead announcer alongside color commentators Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte.
The schedule alignment is set up so that TNT Sports is responsible for the entire five-round, 32-driver in-season tournament, a first-of-its-kind challenge that NASCAR has implemented for this summer.
Tournament races are also scheduled to take place on Sunday, July 6 at the Chicago Street Course; Sunday, July 13 at Sonoma Raceway; Sunday, July 20 at Dover Motor Speedway; and Sunday, July 27 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with each "round" based on head-to-head driver matchups.
Seeding was determined by the final three races on Prime at Michigan International Speedway, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, and Pocono.
After the tournament wraps up and the "champion" is crowned at the Brickyard, coverage is set to shift to NBC for the remainder of the season, starting with the race at Iowa Speedway on Sunday, August 3.
It is worth mentioning that only four of NBC's 14 races are actually set to be shown on NBC; the other 10 are set to be shown on USA Network, which effectively replaced NBC Sports Network when NBC Sports Network shut down at the end of 2021. Likewise, only five of Fox's 14 races were shown on Fox, while the other nine were shown on Fox Sports 1.
This year's NBC broadcast booth is set to consist of lead announcer Leigh Diffey and color commentators Letarte and Jeff Burton.
Tune in to TNT Sports at 7:00 p.m. ET this Saturday, June 28 for the live broadcast of the Quaker State 400 from Atlanta Motor Speedway.