NBC's portion of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series broadcast schedule, the first of the new seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal which was announced last season, is now well underway following the races at Iowa Speedway and Watkins Glen International.
However, the Cup Series has yet to see a race actually shown live on NBC this year, and that will not change this weekend at Richmond Raceway either.
Saturday night's 400-lap Cook Out 400 around the four-turn, 0.75-mile (1.207-kilometer) Richmond, Virginia, just like the races at Iowa at Watkins Glen, is set to be shown live on USA Network.
NASCAR Cup race at Richmond not on NBC
USA Network has been the NBCUniversal-owned alternate channel during NBC's portion of the broadcast schedule since 2022. That role had been held by NBC Sports Network, but NBC Sports Network shut down at the end of 2021.
Under the previous media rights deal, NBC was responsible for the season's final 20 races, and those races were evenly split between NBC and USA. But this year's NBC portion consists of only the final 14 races, and while USA stayed at 10 races, NBC dropped all the way down to four.
A similar trend occurred on Fox, which dropped from 18 races (16 points races ) to 14 (12) to start the year, prior to five-race stints for both Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports.
Fox had been responsible for the majority of those races in previous years, but this year, Fox itself was only responsible for five, while the other nine were on Fox Sports 1.
As for when NBC is actually set to air a race this year, fans don't have to wait much longer.
The regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway next Saturday, August 23 is set to be shown live on NBC. But the first race of the year on NBC is also the last race on NBC for nearly two full months.
The first seven playoff races are set to be shown live on USA Network, before NBC is scheduled to take over for the season's remaining three races at Talladega Superspeedway (Sunday, October 19), Martinsville Speedway (Sunday, October 26), and Phoenix Raceway (Sunday, November 2).
USA Network is set to provide live coverage of the Cook Out 400 from Richmond Raceway beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET this Saturday, August 16. Start a free trial of FuboTV today and don't miss any of the action!