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Insiders call out NASCAR on FOX broadcast commercial breaks at Talladega

Nick Profile Picby:Nick Geddes•04/29/25•

NickGeddesNews

Talladega
Jason Allen-Imagn Images

With 15 laps remaining in Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, FOX cut to a side-by-side commercial. The network came back to the action with 11 laps to go before again putting the NASCAR Cup Series race in a small box with nine to go. It wasn’t until there were five laps remaining in the race did FOX wrap up its final side-by-side commercials.

Let’s just say many fans watching at home weren’t pleased. Neither was Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, who called out FOX on Sunday’s “The Teardown” podcast.

“There was a commercial late in the race from 12 to go to five to go, there was commercials all day,” Gluck said. “… I get it was Artie Kempner‘s last day as FOX director, so maybe he was like, ‘ah, what are they going to do? Get mad at me? Bye.’ You finally get to where they’re racing. All day you’re waiting for them to race, they finally race and they’re like, ‘this is a great time to go to commercial.'”

NASCAR fans slam FOX broadcast for commercial breaks at Talladega

This was a big one for NASCAR. The Cup Series made its return to FOX after a stretch of races being broadcasted on FS1. Fans were excited to see how the final 15 laps would unfold. But a majority of those laps were accompanied by a side-by-side commercial.

“@NASCARONFOX plan on showing any of the god damn race today or just all side by side? Jesus fu*king Christ, absolute fu*king sham,” one fan tweeted. “Commercials from 15 to go til 11 to go and BACK to commercial with 9 to go until 5 to go? Complete clown show. I won’t be watching anyone FOX race.”

Gluck’s colleague and co-host Jordan Bianchi was the track and did not see what happened on the broadcast. He explained why things were different with the race being back on network TV.

“I didn’t see it but if that’s the case, that’s not good,” Bianchi said. “That’s the thing of being on a network too. Like, this is the first network race in how many weeks? When you’re on a network, there are more commercials. Not defending them, just stating how this is.”