When NASCAR made room for Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports to join the Cup Series broadcast schedule as a part of the seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal that went into effect before the 2025 season began, existing partners Fox and NBC were both forced to cut multiple races.
Fox's season-opening portion of the schedule dropped from 18 races (16 points races) to 14 (12), and NBC's season-ending portion dropped from 20 races to 14.
Additionally, the majority of Fox Sports' races are now on Fox Sports 1, rather than Fox, and while NBC itself dropped from 10 races to four, USA Network remained at 10. NBC Sports' portion is now officially classified as USA Sports' portion, following Versant Media's split from Comcast and NBC, and that 10/4 split is still the case.
Martinsville NASCAR Cup Series playoff race not on USA
USA Sports' portion of this year's broadcast schedule began back in August at Iowa Speedway, and its first three races were shown live on USA Network. NBC's first race of the year was the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway in late August.
It was also the final race on NBC for nearly two whole months.
The first seven races of the 10-race postseason were shown live on USA Network, and NBC did not return until this past weekend's race at Talladega Superspeedway. But that race was the first of three scheduled races on NBC to wrap up the 2026 season and crown a Cup Series champion.
Race number two of that three-race stretch is this Sunday's Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway, and race number three is next weekend's Straight Talk Wireless 400 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The broadcast booth remains the same as it was during all of the races on USA Network, with Leigh Diffey in his third season as the lead announcer and both Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte in their 12th seasons together as color commentators.
Tune in to NBC at 2:00 p.m. ET this afternoon for the live broadcast of the Xfinity 500 from Martinsville Speedway. Begin a free trial of FuboTV today if you have not already done so and don't miss any of the action from the second-to-last race on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series postseason schedule!
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