CBS won’t bid for NASCAR or IndyCar TV rights at renewal

CBS Sports is not using the Superstar Racing Experience as a soft opening for more motorsports, and chairman Sean McManus (shown above) ruled out IndyCar joining the network next year.

“I can tell you that we will not have IndyCar next year,” McManus told The Associated Press. “Our commitment right now is to SRX and our programming schedule really precludes us from picking up a series like the IndyCar Series. Even on Indianapolis 500 week, on race day, we’ve got commitments to golf.

CBS gets back into the racing game the next six weeks with SRX, but McManus said there are no plans for other racing series at the network. He said there were initial discussions with IndyCar owner Roger Penske “but it became clear that from a programming standpoint, we just couldn’t find the necessary slots for the races. It’s exciting programming live, it feels big, but it just wasn’t meant to be for CBS.”

For the same reason, McManus said CBS would not likely be a player in NASCAR negotiations when its current TV deals with Fox Sports and NBC expire at the end of the 2024 season.

“We’ve got college basketball in the first quarter, and in the fall we have college football and NFL football,” McManus said. “So I don’t see how we could come up with the necessary network windows to accommodate NASCAR for the same reason as IndyCar.”  Associated Press