Amazon won’t cut away from green-flag racing during NASCAR broadcasts
May 19, 2025
As Amazon’s Prime Video gears up for its NASCAR exclusive coverage debut this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, motorsports enthusiasts will be encouraged about the streamer’s broadcast plans.
According to Adam Stern in Sports Business Journal, Prime Video will only feature picture-in-picture commercials during green-flag racing, rather than cutting away completely as other NASCAR broadcasters have done throughout the years. Instead, Prime Video will only cut to full-screen advertisements during yellow and red flag situations when racing has halted due to a crash or other issue.
This strategy isn’t novel to Prime Video, Fox and NBC have “experimented with this format in recent years at different times,” per Stern. The difference is that the streamer plans to commit to this format throughout all five of its NASCAR Cup Series races this summer.
“We’re fans first and foremost so it’s something we wanted for a long time and know that networks have been working really hard – both NBC and Fox – to try to bring this to fans in recent years, so we know and we’ve done some research to confirm this, we know this is something that fans want, we want to avoid the frustration of being in a full commercial and having something on track happen and fans miss it,” Prime Video senior coordinating producer Alex Strand told SBJ.
Aside from airing fewer intrusive commercials, Prime Video plans to take advantage of the flexibility that comes with broadcasting live events on streaming. Rather than restrict itself to a predefined post-race window, Prime Video plans to air post-race coverage as long as it deems necessary, likely “around 45 minutes,” according to Stern. That’s a huge advantage for streaming as opposed to linear television, which typically needs to shift to other programming shortly after sporting events conclude.
The changes should earn some goodwill from NASCAR fans who, for the first time on Sunday, will need to pay for a streaming service in order to watch a Cup Series race.
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