While the season-ending portion of the NASCAR Cup Series broadcast schedule is now considered USA Sports' portion of the schedule, rather than NBC Sports' portion, due to the Versant split, nothing actually changed as far as the channels are concerned.
All races are shown live on either USA Network or NBC, although when the sport's new seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal went into effect before the 2025 season, introducing Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports into the mix with five races each, the season-ending portion was reduced from 20 races to 14. And while USA remained at 10 races, NBC itself dropped from 10 to four.
Through the first 11 races of that portion this season, NBC had aired only one race, that being the late August regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway.
NASCAR set for its final broadcast switch of 2026
While there remains a contingent of fans who believe Cup Series races should all be airing on NBC this time of year (and exclusively on Fox during Fox's portion for that matter, rather than split between Fox and Fox Sports 1), one of the advantages of the current setup is that there were no changes in the channel through the first seven weeks of the playoffs.
The first seven postseason races were all shown live on USA Network, making it easy for fans to find and locate the Cup Series action each week.
Now NASCAR is set for one more switch, as all races from this point forward are set to be shown live on NBC to conclude the season, beginning with Sunday afternoon's YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Notably, nothing changes as far as the broadcast booth is concerned, and the same team is responsible for bringing the race live onto your living room TV screens. The only thing that changes is the channel, and barring a postponement or delay, NBC is set to be your home for the Cup Series throughout the rest of the year.
Leigh Diffey remains the lead announcer, alongside analysts Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte.
The season-ending three-race stretch is also set to include next Sunday's race at Martinsville Speedway as well as the following Sunday's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Homestead-Miami most recently hosted the season finale in 2019. It did not even host a playoff race in 2020, 2021, or 2025.
With these three races set to be shown live on NBC, rather than USA Network, fans can watch for free by beginning a trial of FuboTV. Do so today and don't miss any of the action from this coming Sunday's YellaWood 500! Live coverage from Talladega is set to begin at 2:00 p.m. ET.
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