Goodbyes are never easy! And who better than Dale Earnhardt Jr. can understand it?

The former NASCAR ace racer was long tied up to the popular media company NBC Sports as a broadcaster. But all good things have to end at some point, and Dale Earnhardt did it after the 2023 season. The 49-year-old decided not to return to the NBC Broadcast booth and chose to end his association unilaterally. Junior left NBC without any bitterness between the company and the NASCAR legend.

It seems that Dale Earnhardt Jr. has always had two minds about the tough decision he had to make. But in the latest episode of his podcast, he revealed something that makes it clear that life after leaving NBC has not been easy for the 49-year-old.

Putting the business aspect aside, his heart, it seems, is still with NBC and understandably so. Talking about the change that the NASCAR legend has to undergo from next season onwards and the family time he gets to spend during the transition season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said, “Pretty cool, and man, I cannot wait to get back into the booth. It has been really difficult to not work this year, to be honest with you. I mean, I am enjoying it. I am having some free time and enjoying my trips and being with my family and spending time with Amy, but you know when you sit there and watch those guys, especially the NBC booth, you damn sure miss it.”

Following his decision to leave NBC after the end of the 2023 season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. decided to join Amazon Prime Video and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports for NASCAR coverage starting in the 2025 season. The decision, on the face of it, made sense. Junior has an active presence on YouTube along with other social media platforms. A partnership with the streaming platform Amazon Prime Video, among others, would add to his growing online presence.

The move from Junior comes after he has spent 5 years at NBC. The fans valued the dynamism brought by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his expertise in NASCAR. The former No. 88 driver has made 17 career appearances for the broadcasting company, where he shared his race analyses. His abilities as a commentator and analyst were evident even before his association with NBC, as he made some cameo appearances on television.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. joining hands with Amazon Prime Video and WB is not the only noticeable change fans will see from the 2025 season. Apart from NASCAR legend switching broadcasters, fans will witness the first Cup series points race outside the US in 67 years. Mexico City’s Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez racetrack will be the witness to this historic event on June 15, 2025. Meanwhile, as the news became public, rumors instantly started doing rounds, and two theories were put forward.

One is a feud over NBC making him broadcast the races remotely from their Charlotte studio instead of watching them live and the other is NBC has ‘scolded’ him for not looking at the monitors while looking at the tracks instead. However, Earnhardt Jr. took to his X to clear the air, stating that these speculations are far from the truth. “NBC is not considering a remote booth and I was never scolded for anything,” he had stated. The rumor might have been the outcome of a discussion that he did in his podcast toward the end of February.

On that episode, Earnhardt Jr. has spoken at length in favor of TV cameras showing more cars than only the top three or four. He had discussed how he disliked the idea of missing the trailing cars making a pass or getting into a wreck because of the cameras zooming only on the first few cars. At this point, one of his co-hosts spoke about how Kevin Harvick has also supported the same.

“To Harvick’s credit, you see something happen and you react to it a lot of times, not knowing what is on the screen. But sometimes that is OK. You know, when I was a kid growing up, they always told me, ‘Don’t react to anything that is not on the screen. The viewer can’t see it going on. That’s wrong. Don’t do that.’ I don’t believe that. I think that is a BS,” he had said. While we do not know if there is any truth in the speculations, this is not the only major change that is happening in the NASCAR broadcast in 2025.

The race organizers have introduced substantial changes in the venues and timings of the races in the calendar. Shifting Homestead-Miami in March, opting for Talladega Superspeedway in the semi-finals of the Cup Series, and The Clash shifting to the Bowman Gray Stadium are some of the important changes introduced by NASCAR.

However, probably the biggest change amongst these is the new media rights that NASCAR has made with its broadcasting partners. The deal, in a way, also aligns with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s shift from NBC to Amazon Prime Video and WB.

NASCAR’s new media deal: A significant change

With the growth of streaming platforms now imminent, NASCAR has entered into a new era in the way the races will be viewed in the future. The new media rights deal will have four partners. The estimated value of the seven-year deal is $7.7 billion, and it includes Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports, as well as the conventional NASCAR partners, FOX Sports and NBC Sports. According to the new deal, FOX Sports and NBC Sports will still show most of the Cup Series races. Both broadcasters will have the distribution rights of 14 races each.

However, the new partners, Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports have also received a substantial chunk of the deal. The online streaming platforms and Warner Bros.-owned media company will have the distribution rights to 5 mid-season races each. Additionally, they will also have the right to stream the entire Cup Series practice and qualifying sessions until 2031.

And with NBC just a few races in the season, it looks like fans are already voicing appreciation to NBC. A 2-month-old thread on Reddit, “NBC is so much better than FOX,” saw some great appreciation for NBC and some major accusations toward FOX Sports.

What are your thoughts on NASCAR’s new media deal? Do you think Dale Earnhardt Jr. made the right decision by leaving NBC Sports? Let us know in the comments down below.