One round of the four-round, 10-race 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs is in the books following Saturday night's Bristol Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, and there are 12 drivers remaining in championship contention heading into the round of 12 opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend.
Sunday's 301-lap Mobil 1 301 around the four-turn, 1.058-mile (1.703-kilometer) "Magic Mile" oval in Loudon, New Hampshire marks the eighth race of NBC's portion of the broadcast schedule in year one of the sport's new seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal.
With NBC's portion of the calendar having dropped from 20 races to 14 as a part of the new deal, in order to make room for Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports alongside Fox and NBC, the Bristol race marked the halfway point of NBC's schedule for 2025.
However, only one of the first seven races was actually shown live on NBC. The first three races at Iowa Speedway, Watkins Glen International, and Richmond Raceway were shown live on USA Network, which effectively replaced NBC Sports Network as the alternate NBC channel, similar to how Fox's races are split between Fox and Fox Sports 1.
The only race shown on NBC so far was the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway, as the opening three races of the playoffs at Darlington Raceway, World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, and Bristol were also shown live on USA Network.
The round of 12 opener won't be shown live on NBC either.
The Mobil 1 301 is the fourth of seven consecutive races set to be shown live on USA Network to open up the playoffs. Similar to the round of 16, the entire three-race round of 12 is set to be shown live on USA rather than NBC. The quarterfinal round also includes a race at Kansas Speedway next weekend and a race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval the following weekend.
To open up the round of 8, the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway is also set to be shown live on USA, but beyond that, all remaining races are set to be shown live on NBC.
NBC's three races to wrap up the season include the middle race of the round of 8 at Talladega Superspeedway, the round of 8 finale at Martinsville Speedway, and the Championship 4 title decider at Phoenix Raceway.
Leigh Diffey is the lead announcer during NBC's portion of the schedule, and that is true whether a race is shown live on NBC or USA. The broadcast booth analysts include Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte.
Additionally, whether a race is shown live on NBC or USA Network, you can catch all of the action by beginning a free trial of FuboTV. If you have not yet done so, do so today and don't miss USA Network's live coverage of the Mobil 1 301 from New Hampshire Motor Speedway this Sunday, September 21 at 2:00 p.m. ET!