Clear Channel Entertainment’s motorsports division will announce today that its AMA Supercross Series has landed its largest network television package ever, with multirace coverage on CBS.
Terms of the deal were not released, but Ken Hudgens, vice president of motorsports for Clear Channel Entertainment, confirmed that the two-year deal was a time buy for Supercross. The six AMA Supercross/World Supercross GP series races are next-day-air and will be rebroadcast on Speed Channel at a later date.
In addition to six race broadcasts, a one-hour season preview will air at 5 p.m. Christmas Day, bringing the 2005-06 season’s total network TV coverage to seven hours.
News of the network television package comes less than three months after the series announced it was leaving ESPN, which it had been with since 1990, for Speed Channel. As part of that five-year deal, Hudgens said the series was given an opportunity to take some races to network television.
CBS’s race coverage begins with the first race of the year Jan. 7 in Anaheim and ends April 29 in Seattle. Anaheim’s second January race and the events in San Francisco, San Diego and St. Louis also will appear on CBS.
Hudgens said the remaining 11 events will be seen on Speed.
