When the United States Air Force Thunderbirds made their annual flyover at the Daytona 500, you know you’re witnessing a special moment. With 2025 being the 15th year of the majestic F-16s carrying out this tradition, it was a big moment for the sport. Except, FOX Sports made a mess of it during the broadcast. Viewers didn’t know it happened, not until Jeff Gluck posted about it on X. What a letdown, right?

Now NASCAR fans are familiar with broadcasters getting on their nerves. All one has to do is go back a few years down memory lane for a special Kevin Harvick moment in 2023. With Harvick battling Tyler Reddick at turn 4 during the Daytona 500, FOX Sports cut to commercials. With a reputation like this NASCAR definitely could use a win in their broadcasting department.

Well, FOX Sports might have just found a sense of redemption after details of its special Daytona 500 broadcast strategy emerged. Instead of showing full-screen commercials, FOX opted to use half-screen ads to ensure fans didn’t miss out on any action. As mentioned in the Harvick incident, FOX had a reputation for switching to these full-screen ads right when the action was getting intense in the race.

It’s a big jump for the broadcaster, especially if data from previous years is checked. According to the Sports Business Journal, FOX planned to air 35 minutes of these side-by-side ads and stunned fans by following through on it. Compared to its 2024 numbers, it’s a massive jump, since they only ran 11 minutes of these ads a year ago.

At the same time, the buildup to the race ensured the ad revenue kept flowing. According to some reports, NASCAR sold each of its 30-second commercial slots at $500,000, with slots getting booked up back in December. It’s a massive leap for the sport in times of declining viewership numbers, considering the numbers have fallen from 18 million two decades ago to somewhere around 4-5 million viewers in recent years.

In a year of new broadcasters joining the NASCAR fray, fans are happy with FOX Sports, and they aren’t shy of showing the love.

Fans hope big changes come to NASCAR ads

“Big step back in the right direction,” said one fan on the X update. Now, fans haven’t exactly been happy about the way FOX presented both the Clash and the opening points race at Daytona. Whether it was the graphic malfunctions or the lack of weather updates during the rain delay, the broadcaster received a lot of flak. However, keeping fans constantly in the action by keeping ads to the side has earned them some brownie points in a year with multiple partners joining the NASCAR broadcasting business. It’s also why one fan referred to it as a “Rare @NASCARONFOX W?”

However, some believed there was another reason for FOX changing up their strategy. As many fans may already know, NASCAR’s $7.7 billion media deal kicks in this year. Part of the deal includes Amazon joining the inventory of broadcasters, with the promise to treat NASCAR on the level they treat the NFL. Some believe it’s this offer that forced FOX Sports to pull their socks up and come up with new strategies to improve viewers’ experience. One fan embodied this, saying, “Thank you @NASCARONFOX good step in the right direction. Must be part of the new tv deal.” 

As per the new media deal coming into effect this year, NASCAR has five races on FOX Sports, two of which were the opening races, Bowman Gray and Daytona 500. Both races had used the side-by-side ads in an effort to keep fans in the action, and it’s working so far. Both races were quite eventful, with overtakes and wrecks. Whether it was Keselowski’s late misfortune or Stenhouse Jr. and Logano coming together, fans didn’t miss any of it because of full-screen ads. As a result, one fan had a simple request for FOX. “Massive W, NBC better do this for all the races as well.” Lucky for this fan, FOX Sports plans to continue this strategy for the remaining 3 races it will run. However, the nine events it will run on FS1 will continue to use the old plan. As for NBC, fans will have to wait until the final leg of the season to see how they fare against FOX. Since they have experimented with the idea in the last season, fans remain hopeful.

One thing to remember here is that what FOX Sports is doing isn’t completely new. ESPN started a different version of this back in 2018 with their F1 broadcasts. They decided not to show any ads at all during the broadcast, something fans begged NASCAR to replicate. With FOX’s take on the Daytona 500, it seems like the sport is taking baby steps in the right direction, as one fan explained simply by saying, “Took them long enough to catchup.”