Dale Earnhardt Jr. expects NASCAR on Prime broadcast to get a bad rap from racing fans
During the interview, host Michael McCarthy, also known as "Large," noted racing fans seem to have an issue with every NASCAR broadcast and asked if Earnhardt Jr. is similarly expecting Prime Video to get a bad rap.
"Oh yeah," Earnhardt Jr. said without hesitation. "It's whoever is doing the races at the time, that's the people that are gonna get the criticism. As soon as NBC would pick up the broadcast, everybody would go, 'Man, I can't wait until Fox is doing it again!' It just kind of comes with the territory."
The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season is the first of a seven-year media rights deal that saw Amazon Prime Video join as a partner. Fox aired the first 14 races of the season, followed by five on Prime Video and five more on TNT Sports before the schedule wraps up on NBC. In the NASCAR on Prime booth, Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte will work as analysts, with Adam Alexander being the play-by-play voice. As for the criticism he's already expecting, Earnhardt Jr. is looking forward to the negative feedback.
Prime's broadcast can improve on constructive criticism, but one thing Earnhardt Jr. can't fix or even apologize for is the fact that racing fans will have to stream the race to consume it. NASCAR has a lot of older fans who live in rural areas. Just as NFL and MLB fans complain about streaming, NASCAR and Amazon will undoubtedly hear a lot of those complaints from racing fans when Prime Video begins its slate of races
https://awfulannouncing.com/amazon/dale-earnhardt-jr-nascar-broadcast-racing-fans.html