Last week, news broke that Comcast is planning to shut down NBCSN at the end of 2021, rather than renegotiate carriage deals with major cable outlets such as Charter Cable's Spectrum service.  Obviously, such a move has a significant effect on coverage of motorsports.

Up until recently, NBC Sports has marketed themselves as the place to be for motorsports.  This move throws coverage of most forms of motorsports in the United States in the air.  Who will be safest in this situation?  NASCAR.  As the biggest motorsports property in NBC Sports' portfolio, races that would normally air on NBCSN would air on USA, a basic cable channel that is currently in more homes than NBCSN.  There may be some simulcasts between NBCSN and USA in the second half of the year.

Would that move necessarily lead to higher viewership?  I'm personally not sure, but not necessarily.  We don't have a lot of data on that as USA has only aired a couple of races in the past few years.  It has been viewed as an alternate place to air events if NBCSN is unavailable.  During the coverage of 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, USA aired two races, the Cup race at Watkins Glen and the rainy Xfinity race at Mid-Ohio.  Ratings there seemed to be a little lower than they would have been on NBCSN.  Why was that so?  Likely because fans weren't used to turning on USA to see races.  USA hasn't been a regular destination for race fans since the 1980s.  Back then, USA aired IMSA events, Trans-Am, at least one Busch race and tape-delayed coverage of the Twin 125s.

My understanding is that NBCUniversal wants to make USA into a direct competitor to TNT (they just so happen to be right next to each other in my cable system as well), if they weren't already.  The NBA has proven that fans will go to non-sports basic cable networks for games, having had games on TNT for over 30 years.  At the same time, adding more sports to USA is a throwback to the early days of the channel, where they aired sports seven days a week at night and weekend afternoons and evenings.  Honestly, a lot of that is before my time, but I do remember seeing golf and tennis on there in addition to pugilism (boxing) and wrestling.  The difference today as compared to the 1980s is that they don't show children's programming, which opens things up to more sports.

The ongoing practice and qualifying issues in NASCAR are a whole 'nother article.  I don't know what would happen with those sessions in the second half of the season (what little number of them there actually are).  Let's just say that I'm not happy about that mess and we'll come back to it later.

Outside of NASCAR, it's problem city.  INDYCAR is in a contract year with NBC Sports, so this news came at a pretty bad time.  If they were to stay with NBC Sports, some of their races would stay on NBC, while others would be on either USA or CNBC.  INDYCAR has already acknowledged that the move might force them to negotiate with an additional TV partner.

In regards to CNBC, let's be honest with ourselves.  They don't do anything on CNBC on weekends other than air marathons of shows such as Undercover Boss.  Trust me, I look at their weekend schedules constantly just to make sure there isn't a race broadcast that sneaks in there.  Nothing against any of you that like Undercover Boss.  Heck, it might have been the first place that a lot of you saw NASCAR president Steve Phelps.  If they put more sport broadcasts on CNBC and properly promoted them as being there, I wouldn't be opposed.  CNBC probably has similar reach to USA and is also a basic cable channel. 

IMSA stands to lose significant visibility from this move.  They are starting their third of a six-year deal with NBC Sports and this move means that they're losing the channel that airs the vast majority of their programming.  This year, NBCSN accounts for 51 of the 60 hours on television for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.  They're going to have severe issues trying to replace that with anything approaching that level of visibility.

At present, five of IMSA's touring series have broadcasts on NBCSN.  In addition to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Michelin Pilot Challenge, Prototype Challenge, the recently renamed Porsche Carrera Cup North America and Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America all had delayed broadcasts on NBCSN last year.  All of those series are still in the fold, along with Mazda MX-5 Cup, which is now IMSA-sanctioned.

I have no idea what will happen to any of these series as far as television is concerned.  The TV schedule for WeatherTech in 2021 has already been released.  IMSA could very well exclusively broadcast some of these series on their website going forward.  They currently live-stream Porsche Carrera Cup North America and Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America races without geoblocks.  They plan to stream the MX-5 Cup races as well, although they'll also be available on TrackPass.

TrackPass is still a go for 2021 as they started their coverage last weekend with the Scouts For America 145 for Prototype Challenge and the live stream of the Motul Pole Award 100 that later aired via tape-delay on NBCSN.  The World Series of Asphalt should still be on there, along with additional action for ARCA Menards Series East.  The Pensacola race coverage will also include support series.  On Tuesday, the Vore's Compact Touring Series announced that their feature on the undercard of the Pensacola 200 next month will be streamed on TrackPass.

Beyond 2021 is a question mark.  I wouldn't be shocked if all of the TrackPass offerings ended up on Peacock in 2022.  For this year, the TrackPass offerings will be the only racing offerings on NBC Sports Gold as within the past 30 minutes, NBC Sports announced that the INDYCAR Pass on NBC Sports Gold is no more.  That programming will move to Peacock this year, joining Monster Energy AMA Supercross and the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship.  Last year's coverage will only be available on NBC Sports Gold through Sunday.

It is also likely to challenge a promise that was made in 2019 when TrackPass was first announced.  Phelps stated that no content from the NASCAR Cup, Xfinity or Camping World Truck Series would be placed solely behind paywalls.  Going forward, I'm unsure if NBC Sports can live up to that anymore.

For IMSA's non-primary series, 2021 might be the last year they'll be available on cable unless IMSA comes up with an alternate plan.  For all we know, the shuttering of NBCSN might trigger an out-clause in their overall TV deal, allowing them to become free agents.

AMA coverage might end up being exclusive to either Peacock or MAVTV in the near future.  I can't see any of those series having a place on cable anymore beyond this year.  While watching a broadcast on Peacock isn't terrible, I feel they need to make some changes to the menus so it's easier to find the programming.  The service is not centered upon live programming, but on-demand viewing of series.

Is there anyone that could benefit from this whole mess?  Possibly CBS Sports, which is scheduled to get back into major race broadcasting this year with the ABB FIA Formula E Championship.  NFL Football and The Masters are their only major sports properties going forward.  I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to get back into motorsports in a big way.  Currently, they only have small properties and they're giving up their longtime deal to air SEC football to ESPN soon.  Their dirt rights on CBS Sports Network might be the highest-profile offerings they have in addition to the SRO series.

The whole argument here seems to be that "streaming is the future."  Because of that, Comcast has apparently chosen to forgo the $400 million or more in up front per subscriber fees plus advertising revenue that NBCSN generates.  According to Variety, NBCSN has the second-highest viewership of any sports network in the United States, trailing only ESPN.  Overall, that translates to a tie for 64th.  USA is 20th.  Interestingly enough, Motor Trend actually has a higher daily viewership than NBCSN with a lot of the programming that used to air on SPEED before it became FOX Sports 1 in 2013.

With the quality of internet being what it is here in the United States, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that for quite a while.  Internet speed wildly varies, depending on where you live.  Our own Amy Henderson lived in an apartment in North Carolina for years in which the available "high-speed" internet speeds were so slow that they were considered illegal under state regulations.  Literally high speed in name only.  Lots of people do not have access to broadband internet at all and can only use dial-up.

On paper, Comcast's move to kill NBCSN is not one that I think needed to be made.  Peacock may be nice, but I don't think they're going to be able to recoup the money that they're going to lose by nixing the channel.  In addition, there are going to be a lot of people that will lose their jobs and this is definitely not the time to be putting people on the street.

For the series that have deals with NBC Sports, they're all probably worrying at the moment.  While NASCAR is probably fine, everyone else is shaking in their shoes.  Race fans are not going to benefit from this move long-term.  It'll just be more expensive to watch what they want to watch, or outright impossible.

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.  He also provided the enclosed photo of Kelli Stavast.