NASCAR agreed to an eight-year, $4.48 billion television deal Wednesday that will split its 36-race schedule among Walt Disney Co.’s ABC/ESPN, Fox and TNT beginning in 2007. The deals with all the networks will run through the 2014 season.
ABC/ESPN had been shut out of the last TV contract, a six-year, $2.8 billion deal that began in 2001 and split the schedule among Fox, NBC and the network’s sister stations. When NBC declined to extend its contract with NASCAR, Disney was able to step in and negotiate.
