Fans, start your clickers

New deal will force fans to keep their TV guides close by

Let's say that you have a favorite television drama -- the type of show that you change your personal schedule for. You're so addicted to it that you finally decide to learn how to program your VCR (or TiVo) so you don't miss a minute.

	Mark Spoor
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If you ever do miss it, the person responsible has to be put in the Federal Witness Protection Program for their own safety.

Now let's say you're staring at the Internet one day and you read that next season, your favorite show will be on one network from four months, another network for six weeks, a third network for a few weeks and a fourth channel for 10 more weeks.

How much do you love it?

Welcome to NASCAR's latest TV deal.

Beginning in 2007 and continuing for at least eight years, a season's worth of NASCAR races will be broadcast on no less than six networks, four of which are on cable.

FOX will broadcast the Bud Shootout, Daytona 500 Pole Day and the first 13 points races of each season. Under the current schedule, that takes us through the first week of June at Dover. For the following six races, TNT takes the reins, putting us through the July race at New Hampshire. From there, ESPN and ABC split the remainder of the season. The only thing there that's certain is that all 10 Chase races will be on ABC.

FOX also has two Craftsman Truck Series races each year.

Oh, and the Nextel All-Star Challenge, Gatorade Duel at Daytona and the rest of the Craftsman Truck Series will be on SPEED channel.

Practice, qualifying and Happy Hours will be split between SPEED, ESPN and ESPN2.

And the entire Busch Series will be split between ABC, ESPN and ESPN2.

Does your remote control have fresh batteries?

The practice of splitting up the television pie is hardly exclusive to NASCAR. The NFL, King Daddy of American sports leagues, is split among four networks. Major League Baseball is on four networks and a host of local stations. The NBA is on three networks and many local stations, and the NHL, which didn't even play last year, is on two networks and a boatload of locals.

Of course, money makes the clickers go 'round. The NFL's TV deal, which takes effect next season and is between six and eight years in length depending on the network, totals nearly $24 billion. The NBA's current deal is more than $4 billion, and MLB's is nearly $5 billion.

NASCAR's new deal clocks in at $4.48 billion.

That seems to be a lot of money for one network to shoulder on its own. However, Turner Sports president David Levy said it's marketing, not money, that has precipitated the trend of splitting up TV rights -- at least directly.

"If I was running a league, I wouldn't want all of my events on one network," Levy said. "For one thing, my reach would be limited if I were on just one network. For another, I'd be limited when renewal time came up because only one outlet would have a current relationship with my league."

The good news in all of this is that NASCAR has joined the ranks of the big-time sports, with major media outlets beating each other up for attention and television deals that end up looking more like racing forms at Saratoga.

The bad news would seem to be fans searching for their races like mice going through mazes looking for that lone piece of cheese. It's sort of like before the current TV deal took effect, the same one NASCAR said would be better for fans because they didn't have to search far and wide for race coverage.

Levy said that isn't exactly the case either because all the segments of the season are concurrent, meaning each group has several races in a row.

Of course, with big money comes a need for the networks to make a return on their investment, which neither FOX nor NBC/TNT has done with the current TV deal. So, if you think there were a lot of commercials before ...

Welcome to the big time. Hope you enjoy it.

Mark Spoor is a senior producer for NASCAR.COM. He also writes the site's weekly "Viewer's Guide" column.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.