NASCAR on television in the 1990s

As time passed, more Winston Cup races ended up on TV. ESPN broadcast its first race in 1981, from North Carolina Motor Speedway^[1] (its first live race was later in the year at Atlanta International Raceway), and TNN followed in 1991. All Cup races were nationally televised by 1985; networks struck individual deals with track owners, and multiple channels carried racing action. Many races were shown taped and edited on Wide World of Sports and syndication services like Mizlou and SETN, but almost all races were live by 1989. By 2000, the last year of this arrangement, six networks televised at least one Cup series race: CBS, ABC, ESPN, TNN, TBS, and NBC.

Also, a growing number of races in the Busch Grand National Series and Craftsman Truck Series were made available for broadcast, and some track owners even threw in support races in lesser series. Likewise, Winston Cup qualifying aired on ESPN2 or regional sports network Prime Network.

NASCAR wanted to capitalize on its increased popularity even more, so they decided that future deals would be centralized; that is, the networks would negotiate directly with NASCAR for a regular schedule of telecasts.