NASCAR.com plans to offer complementary coverage of its first Nationwide Series race this Friday for the Bubba Burger 250 at Richmond Int'l Raceway. The race is being broadcast on Speed because of scheduling conflicts on ESPN, which owns the broadcast rights to all Nationwide Series races. Turner owns NASCAR's digital and streaming rights, and Fox, ESPN and Turner share the series' broadcast rights. Speed agreed to let NASCAR.com, which is operated by Turner, offer its RaceBuddy service for the Richmond race in order to reward fans, Turner Senior Dir of Business Operations Justin Williams said. RaceBuddy will provide a backstretch cam, two in-car cameras, a battle cam that shows head-to-head, race competition and a mosaic view of all four camera feeds. Speed has allowed Turner to offer the RaceBuddy service during its broadcast of Camping World Truck Series races for the first time this year, as well. Ratings for truck races on Speed have been relatively flat this year, according to the network. Williams said, "The reason we're able to do this is because we've been working with Speed for a while. Every network has a different take and different discussion we're having. We'd like to provide RaceBuddy to all the races on all three series. We know it helps embrace the fan and gets them excited."
Already a subscriber? Click below to sign in.
Upgrade your subscription to get all the news you need:
Adding SBJ weekly content will give you the comprehensive view of sports business with:
- Award-winning original reporting, with in-depth profiles, timely research and expert opinions on the biggest issues and stories in sports business.
- 49 print issues delivered to your home or office.
- Access to easy-to-read digital editions of weekly issues.
- More than two decades of archival stories, profiles, research and data.