The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season is the second season of the sport's new seven-year, $7.7 billion broadcast rights deal that includes longtime partners Fox and NBC, along with TNT, which had been a media partner of the series up until 2014, and newcomer Amazon Prime Video.
Fox continues to open up each season, although its portion of the broadcast schedule was reduced from 18 races to 14 races (16 points races to 12 points races, factoring in the Clash and All-Star exhibition events), and NBC continues to wrap things up, albeit with 14 races instead of 20.
Prime Video and TNT were given five races each in the middle, with Prime's portion kicking off with the Coca-Cola 600 crown jewel at Charlotte Motor Speedway and TNT's kicking off with the beginning round of the five-round In-Season Challenge, another new element that was added to the Cup Series in 2025.
The In-Season Challenge wrapped up two weekends ago with the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and that race coincided with the conclusion of TNT's 2026 broadcast stint.
No more NASCAR Cup races on TNT in 2026
Following the second and final off weekend of the 2026 season, USA Sports is set to take over this weekend at Iowa Speedway, and it is set to be in charge of Cup Series broadcasting duties from now through the end of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway in early November.
The USA Sports branding is notably no longer NBC Sports, as USA Sports is aiming to establish its brand as its own entity now under parent company Versant Media. Versant split from Comcast and NBC in late 2025.
Under the previous agreement, NBC and USA Network, which replaced NBC Sports Network as the alternate channel during NBC's portion of the schedule back in 2022, were each responsible for airing 10 races. When NBC Sports' portion was cut from 20 to 14 races, those six races were docked from NBC.
USA Network is set to broadcast the next three races, along with the first seven playoff races, while NBC is not scheduled to air its first race until the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway in late August. Likewise, it is not scheduled to show its first playoff race until the late October race at Talladega Superspeedway.
NBC is also set to air the penultimate race of the season at Martinsville Speedway and, of course, the season finale at Homestead-Miami.
Notably, the announcers are set to be the same whether a race is shown live on NBC or USA. Leigh Diffey is set to be back in the booth for the third straight year, after NBC moved him from IndyCar to NASCAR in 2024, in anticipation of IndyCar's move from NBC to Fox. He replaced longtime lead announcer Rick Allen during NBC's 2024 broadcast stint.
Diffey is set to be joined by Jeff Burton, who has been in the booth since 2015, and Steve Letarte, who has also been in the booth since 2015. Letarte has also been in the booth for both Prime and TNT since they were added to the calendar a year ago.
NBC Sports' portion of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series broadcast schedule is scheduled to get underway with the Iowa Corn 350 on USA Network this Sunday, August 9. Live coverage is set to begin at 3:30 p.m. ET, so take advantage of FuboTV's free trial offer and catch all of the action from the Newton, Iowa short track!
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