CBS Sports and Texas Motor Speedway reached a multi-year
deal to broadcast the Texas 500, the new NASCAR Winston Cup race
in Ft. Worth. CBS will broadcast the event live Sunday, April 6,
1997 (CBS). The race will be the fourth Winston Cup event CBS
broadcasts live, joining the Miller 400, the Daytona 500 and the
DieHard 500 (Bill Fleischman, PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, 8/22).
CBS' deal could "mark the beginning of a move by the network to
air more" Winston Cup racing, according to the CHARLOTTE
OBSERVER. The deal "links the network for the first time with
Bruton Smith and his fast-growing empire," Speedway Motorsports.
Twenty-six of the 31 Winston Cup races are on cable TV, but CBS
could cut into that by aligning itself with Smith. Smith and CBS
Sports President David Kenin said they "would like to see the
network get a greater share of those events" as Smith's contracts
expire with ESPN, TNN, and TBS. Smith: "If we can complement
each other, we're very interested" (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 8/22).
Kenin: "Golf and NASCAR give us a strong second and third
quarters of the year." CBS reportedly outbid Fox for the event
(Rudy Martzke, USA TODAY, 8/22).
