Like last year, NBC's portion of the NASCAR Cup Series broadcast schedule is set to begin at Iowa Speedway. But last year, it happened in mid-June, and this year, it's set to happen in early August.
That is because the 2025 season is year number one of a new seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal featuring not only existing broadcast partners Fox and NBC, but also a newcomer in Amazon Prime Video and a partner in TNT Sports that was a part of the previous agreement through 2014.
Prime and TNT were given five races each, so Fox's season-opening portion of the calendar dropped from 18 races (16 points races) to 14 (12), and NBC's season-ending portion dropped from 20 to 14, effectively delaying its season debut by several weeks.
But also like last year, NBC's first race isn't actually set to be shown live on NBC.
USA Network replaced NBC Sports Network as the NBCUniversal-owned alternate channel during NBC's portion of the broadcast schedule after the 2021 season, at which point NBC Sports Network shut down entirely.
The majority of NBC's 14 races are actually set to be shown live on USA Network, rather than NBC, similarly to how nine of the 14 Fox races were actually shown on Fox Sports 1 rather than Fox.
Sunday's 350-lap Iowa Corn 350 around the four-turn, 0.894-mile (1.439-kilometer) Newton, Iowa oval is the first of 10 scheduled races for USA Network this season. NBC's first three races are all scheduled to be shown on USA, with the first race on actual NBC scheduled to be the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, August 23.
The first seven races of the playoffs are then set to be shown live on USA Network before NBC is scheduled to take over for the final three events of the season at Talladega Superspeedway, Martinsville Speedway, and Phoenix Raceway.
Leigh Diffey, who replaced Rick Allen in the broadcast booth last August, is set to serve as the lead announcer for these 14 races, alongside color commentators Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte.
Tune in to USA Network this Sunday, August 3 at 3:30 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the Iowa Corn 350 from Iowa Speedway. Begin a free trial of FuboTV today and don't miss it!