NASCAR names Comcast Xfinity new title sponsor for Nationwide Series

Beginning next year, Comcast’s Xfinity brand will become the new entitlement sponsor of NASCAR’s No. 2 division, currently known as the Nationwide Series.

Executives from Comcast and NASCAR announced the deal during a press conference Wednesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C. The sponsorship for what will be the Xfinity Series is for 10 years and valued at close to $200 million, the Sports Business Journal reported last week. Neither Comcast nor NASCAR would confirm the value of the sponsorship.

“The fact that they’re an innovative company in this space, and they’re leading their industry with both distribution and technology, video, being the lead internet provider, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do at NASCAR in a different way,” NASCAR chairman Brian France said. “We’re trying to embrace technology and innovation wherever we can to either lower costs or make the experience for our fans a better one.”

In an already announced deal, Comcast, through its NBC and NBC Sports television properties, will take over the ESPN/TNT portion of the Sprint Cup Series broadcast coverage in 2015, as well as splitting Xfinity Series races with Fox. NBC and Fox each signed 10-year contracts with NASCAR last season.

Without providing specifics, Comcast executives said they are aiming to make races more accessible on a variety of platforms and devices.

“One of the things that is especially important to us is live sports,” Comcast’s Peter Intermaggio said. “We know that live sports is important to television viewers everywhere. It’s the most important content they can have access to.

“We’re just bringing a lot of changes to the customer experience, to the viewing experience, the way people access content, how and where and when they access content. ... What we hope to bring to our relationship here and for the NASCAR fans everywhere, is to be able to access content on all devices, to find information, data, all the content they want to watch, and to access it everywhere they go.”

Nationwide has been the entitlement sponsor for the past seven seasons, supplanting Anheuser-Busch (1982 to 2007) in 2008. The company announced it was refocusing its NASCAR involvement last October, placing emphasis on driver/team sponsorships.

Hendrick Motorsports revealed in May that beginning in 2015 Nationwide will sponsor Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 38 races over three years.