Dale Earnhardt Jr. is changing vehicles.
The legendary racer will leave NBC Sports’ NASCAR team, where he has held forth as a color commentator since 2018, in favor of lending his expertise to both Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon. The two companies struck new pacts with the racing league last year in agreements that spread NASCAR properties around the media landscape. NASCAR remains with both its current rightsholders, NBC and Fox.
At Warner, Earnhardt will serve as an on-air commentator for TNT Sports’ exclusive coverage of five NASCAR Cup Series races each Summer, airing in consecutive weeks on TNT and the B/R Sports Add-On on Max. He will also contribute to a new Bleacher Report series distributed across the outlet’s social and digital platforms. The new series, co-produced with Earnhardt’s Dirty Mo Media, will have him interview special guests while driving each of TNT’s five NASCAR Sprint Cup Series tracks with them in the passenger seat. Amazon Prime Video said Tuesday that Earnhardt Jr. “will be utilized in a number of capacities throughout Prime Video’s coverage, with specifics to be announced in the coming months.”
“We are thrilled to welcome Dale as an official member of the Amazon family, and build our NASCAR coverage around him,” said Jared Stacy, director of global live sports production at Prime Video. “One of the most beloved figures in racing history, Dale has an unrivaled passion for the sport. We are so excited for him to connect with NASCAR fans next season on Prime Video.”
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“We’re very thrilled to welcome Dale to the TNT Sports family as we partner closely in setting the cornerstone for our NASCAR coverage,” said Craig Barry, executive vice president and chief content officer, TNT Sports. “We could not be more excited for the return of NASCAR to TNT Sports next Summer, with Dale being a critical part of the overall vision and execution of our coverage.”
TNT Sports and Amazon in November struck new seven-year multimedia rights deals that will put races on both Amazon Prime Video as well as TNT, truTV and the Max streaming service.