Denny Hamlin sees both the positives and the negatives in the Xfinity Series broadcasting its races exclusively on The CW beginning in 2025.
Speaking on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast Monday, Hamlin openly discussed the deal and the reaction car owners such as himself had when learning of it.
“Immediately when we saw it — us car owners are like ‘Alright, let’s start doing math. Let’s try and figure out what’s in this deal, what’s not in this deal and how does it relate to the current deal.’ From the information I gathered from the sources I have, what it was, was $75 million-ish, and then you go from $115 million,” Hamlin said. “What’s not included in that $115 million is that NASCAR is going to produce the Xfinity Series. Likely, they’re going to be producing it out of Charlotte, wherever the race is. So they won’t be traveling a whole lot of people.
“NASCAR will then charge back whatever the production cost is to them to produce this to The CW. NASCAR built a $30 million production facility right next to the R&D Center there in Concord for these reasons. You have this, you have a potential Amazon coming on [which will] likely lean on NASCAR to produce that series.”
NASCAR Xfinity Series locks up $800-million media rights deal with The CW
Hamlin expressed his concern for Cup Series broadcast networks FOX and NBC losing a share of NASCAR content by the Xfinity Series moving exclusively to The CW.
“They’re setting themselves up to be the all-inclusive ‘Hey you wanna bid on our sport, we can help produce it for you, you don’t have to put that cost in.’… I spoke to Dale Jr. a little about it and he definitely sees the positives in it. You’re gonna have one home for the Xfinity Series — I do think that’s a good thing. You do lose some efficiencies on the TV side.”
The seven-year deal will see The CW pay about $800 million over the course of the deal for the rights.
“It is a unique proposition for a property to have two things: a fully distributed national broadcast network in The CW and also the biggest station owner in the country in Nexstar,” NASCAR senior vice president of media and productions Brian Herbst said. “When we were thinking about how this partnership could help grow NASCAR as a sport, we looked at both pieces.”
All 33 Xfinity Series races will broadcast on the network, making it the first time every race will be available over-the-air.