NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell plans to meet with CBS Sports head David Berson about moving TNT’s Cup Series races onto broadcast television, according to a report by Awful Announcing.
TNT Sports holds five midseason Cup races in the second year of a seven-year deal. Before the Paramount-Warner Bros-Discovery merger closed, O’Donnell already had talked with Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison, whose company now controls both TNT and CBS, about airing or simulcasting races on CBS, according to Sports Media Watch.
O’Donnell was asked about the idea Tuesday at a Front Office Sports conference.
“CBS used to be a great partner of ours, Turner has been fantastic, so who knows?” he said, as quoted by Sports Media Watch. “I think it’s an opportunity for us, especially as you look forward, to keep everybody close, but we’re very happy with the folks we currently have for sure.”
He did not call for dropping TNT. Both networks could sendup airing races at some point in the future.
Distributors such as Comcast, DirecTV and YouTube TV pay carriage fees for TNT and TBS partly because those channels carry exclusive events, according to Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner. Puck’s John Ourand reported that nothing is imminent while Skydance and league executives review which events could move. CBS’s PGA Tour telecasts could serve as a lead-in for a Saturday night race.
NASCAR Ratings on Broadcast TV vs. Cable
The Cup Series averaged 2.45 million viewers in 2025, the first year of its new media deal, down 14.7% from 2.87 million in 2024, according to Black Book Motorsport. The playoffs averaged 1.87 million, the lowest postseason figure on record.
Races that aired on broadcast television in both years gained 3%. Races that moved from broadcast to cable lost 32%, and those that moved to streaming lost 27%, according to Sports Video Group’s ratings data. The O’Reilly Auto Parts series, which airs entirely on The CW, averaged 1.03 million viewers in 2025, up 9%.
This year, the five TNT races averaged 2.0 million viewers under Nielsen’s “Big Data + Panel” measurement and 2.1 million under the panel-only method NASCAR now publicizes, up 4%, according to Sports Media Watch. The Brickyard 400 drew 2.38 million, the smallest audience in that race’s history.
A late-summer Daytona race on NBC drew 3.51 million viewers under panel-only measurement, according to Sports Media Watch’s ratings tracker. The tracks, dates and competition differ, but the gap from TNT’s average is about 1.4 million viewers.
CBS History With NASCAR and Skydance Ownership
CBS aired the first live, flag-to-flag Daytona 500 in 1979, with many viewers stuck at home by a massive East Coast snowstorm, and remained the race’s television home for 21 years, according to CBS Sports’ Steven Taranto. A new rights deal moved NASCAR to Fox, NBC and Turner Sports in 2000.
“It was one of the great success stories of live sports television,” former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson said, as quoted by CBS Sports.
Berson, CBS Sports president and CEO since 2024, now will lead Skydance’s global sports business, while TNT Sports chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser exits, according to TheWrap. His portfolio spans the NFL, March Madness, the NHL, Major League Baseball, NASCAR and golf. CNBC reported that he will decide which properties to keep as the combined company works to reduce nearly $80 billion in debt, according to TheWrap.
O’Donnell and Berson have not met yet. Any move depends on carriage agreements that Skydance and the leagues have only begun to examine.
NASCAR CEO Reveals Potential New TV Deal That Could Change Race Broadcasts