NBCSN’s “NASCAR America” will move to a new time beginning June 13, the network announced Tuesday. The one-hour evening program will move from a 5 p.m. ET start time to a 6 p.m. ET start time.
“It’s a shift that we think is going to be a great move, not only for us at NBC, but also for all of the viewers,” Vice President of NASCAR Productions Jeff Behnke told NASCAR.com. “We feel like there’s going to be more people at home to be able to be able to watch it (at 6 p.m.), whether they’re watching it on NBCSN, whether they’re watching it on the Live Extra app.
“We just feel like 6 o’clock is a window that we can get more eyeballs on it and whenever we can do something that we can help grow the sport and push things forward, that’s what we want to do.”
In addition to the start-time shift, the show will also feature “90-Minute Mondays” on select Mondays throughout the year, which involves the show extending from 60 to 90 minutes in length. This — in combination with two NBC studios located in NASCAR’s home base of Charlotte, North Carolina, where many of the race shops are located — will allow more for more in-depth coverage of the sport, Behnke said.
“The backbone of NBC Sports is storytelling,” Behnke said. “By going to ’90-Minute Mondays,’ it’s going to allow us to continue to tell the stories of these drivers. The different things we do on the show, we feel like certainly help the viewers. … We’ll be able to spend more time at race shops, we’ll certainly be able to have more time with highlights, more time with opinion and just breakdown sessions with our announcers.”
The announcer lineup for the network is star-studded, featuring former drivers and crew chiefs such as Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett, renowned drivers Kyle Petty and Jeff Burton, and former Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Steve Letarte.
“We feel like the talent that we have is going to be a big part of what we do and what they have to offer is going to be a big part of what we do in those 90-minute shows,” Behnke said.
NBC Sports will resume race coverage of NASCAR beginning with the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway on July 2.