Before the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season ended, it was confirmed that Rick Allen would be leaving the Cup Series broadcast booth on NBC (and USA Network) to make way for Leigh Diffey.
Many believed that this move came as a result of IndyCar's new broadcast deal with Fox. With Diffey having served as the lead announcer for IndyCar races on NBC since 2013, the overarching belief was that NBC didn't want to risk the popular Australian leaving for Fox to continue calling the open-wheel races.
Will Buxton ended up being named IndyCar's lead announcer on Fox, with former NBC driver analysts James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell transitioning over to Fox to join him.
As a result of NBC's proactive measure, Allen was replaced by Diffey beginning with the late August race at Daytona International Speedway, though he continued to call Xfinity Series races until the 2024 season concluded.
Rick Allen out at NBC entirely
But Allen, who had served in his lap-by-lap role for Cup Series races on NBC since 2015, had nowhere to go once the 2025 season began, and while retaining Diffey made sense, doing so at the expense of the longtime voice of NASCAR on NBC was an eyebrow-raising move, to say the least.
As a part of NASCAR's news seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal, all Xfinity Series races were moved to the CW Network, and former Fox announcer Adam Alexander had been tabbed the lead announcer for those races.
Additionally, the Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports broadcast booths for their respective five-race stints were announced as being the exact same, with Alexander leading those broadcasts alongside two of Allen's former NBC colleagues, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte.
Earnhardt left NBC on his own after 2023 and took the year off in 2024, while Letarte is still set to serve as a driver analyst alongside Diffey and fellow analyst Jeff Burton on NBC. So the three-man booth is set to remain this year what it was from the August Daytona race up through November's season finale at Phoenix Raceway last year.
Allen recently opened up about how crushing his exit was from NBC, and given the struggles experienced by a number of members of the Fox broadcast team, specifically at the Truck level, earlier this year, several NASCAR fans have called upon the network to make a move to secure his services for 2026.
But nothing has come to fruition yet, and so when NBC's portion of the schedule begins with the Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway this Sunday, August 3, it will mark the first time that Allen has not been leading the way following the transition from another network's portion of the schedule to NBC's.
Tune in to USA Network (not NBC itself) at 3:30 p.m. ET this Sunday, August 3 for the live broadcast of the Iowa Corn 350 from Iowa Speedway. Start a free trial of FuboTV today and don't miss any of the action!