NASCAR will become the next in a growing list of mainstream sport properties to begin airing events over a major streaming platform in the form of the prestigious Coca-Cola 600 Sunday on (Amazon) Prime Sports.
NASCAR on Prime is the second of four broadcast partners, taking over the next five weeks after FOX Sports and before handing the figurative baton over to TNT and then NBC Sports. The difference, again, for this next stretch is asking its loyal following to literally buy into a streamer after an entire lifetime finding races on cable or terrestrial television.
Newly enshrined NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Carl Edwards, who will appear in a studio analyst role, feels optimistic about the potential of luring fans over.
“I was on the phone with a farmer who owns some neighboring property next to ours,” said Edwards during a NASCAR on Prime teleconference this week. We were talking about some other things but he was like, ‘hey, I heard you’re doing some TV’ and I was thinking ‘this guy is 85-years-old and I’m going to have to explain this to him,’ but he was like, ‘yeah, I already have Prime,’ so that was easy.
“Now, I’ve talked to some other people who are still trying to figure it out but I want to say that Prime takes this seriously. I believe people are going to find it and enjoy it. Hopefully it becomes something the fans feel good about and it doesn’t have any hiccups.
“They’ve already paved the way with other sports they’ve been part of and that will transition well to NASCAR too.”
The story Edwards relayed about the farmer is a promising sign because the internet is also full of people just like him but instead expressing an inability or unwillingness to watch sports on anything other than traditional television. With that said, this is also an extension of the generation that balked at migrating to cable in the first place.
Prime, like their peers at Peacock, AppleTV or Netflix, have been streaming mainstream sports for years now and NASCAR has been able to analyze the landscape before inking this particular deal that runs through 2031.
Thursday Night Football now airs on Prime under the purview of executive director Alex Strand, who has overseen an award-winning product that is, at worst, indistinguishable from the traditional television format that preceded while also innovating.
Strand wants NASCAR fans to know that they take this responsibility just as seriously as the other sporting properties they’ve crossed this bridge with.
“My big headline is that this is a huge responsibility,” Strand said. “We take this really seriously and are excited to bring this coverage to fans. What we’ve seen when we got Thursday Night Football or the English Premier League in the UK is that we’ve spent a lot of time assuring those fans that we are going to deliver on the core expectations.
“There’s trust that viewers are placing onto you to bring them the sport they love and we take that very seriously.”
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As much as some traditionalists may lament needing to add another streaming platform, there are perks associated with being off traditional television too. For example, the next five races will air every single lap, without full screen commercials, in full 1080p resolution with numerous in-race highlight and replay options.
And unlike races on television, there is no hard out or rushed post-race for races that go over what would have been the television window. Strand says the post-race show will end when they feel they have thoroughly dissected the race and not because another event needs to start.
“I think that’s going to be a big part of our identity, what we’re able to do in our post-race window,” Stand said. “As a streamer, we don’t have to get off the air for anything else. We’re going to stay on and talk about everything we just saw.”
With that said, the actual flag-to-flag broadcast does not intend to reinvent the wheel. The booth features Adam Alexander, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte, all veterans of this particular craft. It’s a new combination but it’s their interplay and chemistry that will set it apart from other broadcast partners.
But again, the trio aren’t out to break new ground in how they call races.
“I wouldn’t say our approach is any different,” said Alexander. “I would say the best way to present NASCAR is very conversational and the way the three of us talk about racing during meetings, lunch or dinner, our rehearsals, is pretty compelling.
“We are taking that same tone with us to the booth this weekend.”
Unlike FOX Sports, which produces races in-house, the remaining Cup Series races will all come from the NASCAR Productions building in Concord, North Carolina with a lot of carryover across Prime, TNT and NBC.
With that said, Strand is an Amazon employee and has implemented a degree of his vision on what the next five weeks will look like too.
“We are a pretty data-centric bunch and we actually feel like data can tell stories about the sports we love or teach you something you didn’t know before,” Strand said. “But I also think its important to show it in a simple way. We have a unique opportunity in NASCAR because it’s such a data heavy sport to begin with.
Strand says he and Letarte have been at work for four months on a weekly feature for these races in that spirit.
“But more broadly, it’s about how do we look at strategy, something complex, and make it easy to understand,” Strand said. “How do we simplify it for the hardcore fans and also make it accessible to a first-time fan.
“I think we’ve done that with Thursday Night Football and believe we can thread that needle with NASCAR too.”
But Strand is most exciting for the pre- and post-race shows, which he believes will provide most of what makes these next five weeks stand out on its own. In addition to Edwards, studio shows will be hosted by Danielle Trotta and Cup Series mainstay Corey Lajoie, currently racing a part-time schedule for Rick Ware Racing.
Lajoie called Alexander, Earnhardt and Letarte ‘the perfect NASCAR booth’ and feeling challenged to follow that up each week.
“Our job is to break down what we just saw on TV, talk about the superstars and articulate what makes Kyle Larson so good, or Christopher Bell,” Lajoie said. “It’s a unique situation for me, still racing, but also getting the opportunity to talk racing with Carl Edwards and enjoy so much the way I have already.”
His experience with this car is also a perk.
“That’s what I’m really comfortable with because I’ve been in the trenches since this car hit the race track at Charlotte,” Lajoie said. “Articulating just how finicky, and precise, and the margins with this car. A couple of thousandths on a left rear bump stop is the difference between hitting it and missing it.
“I can articulate what it means to be caught in a rough aero spot or the reason guys are being so aggressive because that’s the name of the game with that car… My knowledge with this car is what should stand out. The NextGen car, I have found about every way to wreck them so I can at least talk about what happens when you get put in a bad spot.”
All told, Strand and his Amazon bosses in Seattle know this is a new bridge for NASCAR fans to cross and he says they have treated this with a diligence that they hope is reflected in product and brings them back over the remaining six years of this new broadcast agreement too.
“Like Corey said, we want to celebrate what these guys are doing out there, what makes them great,” Strand said. “We’re fans first. We are excited to be spending our days at the race track. … This is about covering the races, that’s what’s most important to us, telling the story.
“I think you have a group of talent who are the most capable of that and are excited for the opportunity to share those stories with fans.”
