Talks between NASCAR chief executive Steve O'Donnell and CBS Sports president David Berson are being pursued around the possibility of shifting TNT's Cup Series race package to broadcast television, per an industry media report. Under the terms of a seven-year broadcasting arrangement now in its second year, TNT Sports is scheduled to air five Cup races that fall within the midseason window.
Prior to the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger closing, O'Donnell had held conversations with Skydance's David Ellison — whose company took on oversight of both TNT and CBS through the deal — regarding the possibility of putting races on CBS, either exclusively or alongside another broadcast, according to one news outlet. Speaking at a Front Office Sports conference on Tuesday, O'Donnell drew on CBS as a past broadcast partner and Turner as a continuing one when the topic arose, noting that the league's current television arrangements were in a place it found comfortable — without calling for TNT's removal from the picture. Race coverage on both networks remains a possibility down the line.
Carriage fees paid to TNT and TBS by platform operators — among them Comcast, DirecTV, and YouTube TV — are tied in part to the value those channels derive from holding exclusive broadcast rights to certain events. No announcement appeared imminent, according to reports, as Skydance and league officials worked through a list of events that might be candidates for relocation. Saturday night racing on CBS could draw on the network's PGA Tour golf coverage as a programming bridge into the evening.
Viewership for the Cup Series came in at a per-broadcast average of 2.45 million during 2025 — the opening year under its restructured media rights arrangement — representing a 14.7-percentage-point retreat from the 2.87 million recorded across 2024, per data compiled by Black Book Motorsport. Postseason viewership that cycle settled at an average of 1.87 million per broadcast — a tally without precedent in playoff history for its low mark. Viewership for events carried on free-to-air television across both periods rose by three percent.
Viewership data from Sports Video Group shows that events shifting to cable drew audiences roughly 32% smaller than before, while those transitioning to streaming platforms saw attendance drop by around 27%. Viewership for the O'Reilly Auto Parts series, broadcast exclusively on The CW, climbed to an average of 1.03 million per outing during 2025, reflecting a 9% gain over the prior year.
Across the five TNT broadcasts this season, viewership landed at 2.0 million per race under Nielsen's "Big Data + Panel" methodology and at 2.1 million when calculated through the panel-only approach that NASCAR has chosen to highlight publicly — a 4% gain, data from a sports media outlet indicated. Viewership for the Brickyard 400 fell to 2.38 million, a figure lower than any previously recorded for that event. 51 million viewers tuned into the Daytona race that aired on NBC toward the end of summer, with that figure captured through panel-based measurement alone. Measured against TNT's viewer average, that figure falls roughly 1.4 million short.
For 21 consecutive years, CBS held the television rights to the Daytona 500, a run that opened with the 1979 contest — the first time the full race aired live on national TV from green flag to checkered flag, pulling in a notably larger viewership than usual after a widespread East Coast snowstorm left millions of people at home with little else to do. When a broadcast rights deal took shape in 2000, NASCAR's television home moved to Fox, NBC, and Turner Sports — a transition that Neal Pilson, the former CBS Sports president, described to a news outlet as ranking among the more consequential agreements in the history of live sports broadcasting.
Oversight of Skydance's worldwide sports operations passes to Berson — who took on the CBS Sports president and CEO role in 2024 — as Luis Silberwasser steps away from his post atop TNT Sports as chairman and CEO. Across football, college basketball, hockey, baseball, stock-car racing, and the links, his work touches every corner of the American sports calendar. Reports from one broadcast outlet indicated that he would be responsible for choosing which assets to retain as the newly merged entity works through approximately $80 billion in outstanding debt obligations.
As of the time of reporting, O'Donnell and Berson had not yet been in contact with one another. Distribution agreements between Skydance and the leagues sit at the centre of any workable path ahead, with both parties having only recently begun their joint review of those terms.
