TOLEDO, Ohio (Jan. 12, 2018) – Officials from the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) and FOX Sports have announced a three-year broadcast rights agreement that calls for a minimum of eight ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards events to be televised on FOX Sports in each of the next three years 2018 – 2020.
FS1 will drop the green flag on ARCA’s 66th season of competition at Daytona International Speedway with live coverage of the 55th Lucas Oil 200 Driven by General Tire February 10, 2018.
“With more than two decades of working together under our belts, it’s great to be able to secure another multi-year deal with the team at ARCA,” said Josh Oakley, FOX Sports Executive Director of Acquisitions & League Operations. “We look forward to getting the new deal started as part of FOX Sports’ comprehensive coverage of Daytona Speedweeks in February.”
The 2014 season marked ARCA’s first full year on FOX Sports. NewsCorp, the parent company of FOX Broadcasting Company, rebranded SPEED in September, 2013. ARCA’s relationship with the FOX Sports family of networks reaches back to April 20, 1997, when Speedvision covered the ARCA Racing Series race at Salem Speedway. Cumulatively, Speedvision, Speed Channel, SPEED and FS1 and FS2 have telecast 248 races encompassing 21 consecutive years of covering the ARCA Racing Series.
“ARCA has a well-established history of investing in long-term relationships, and that certainly holds true in the case of our television network partnership,” said ARCA President Ron Drager. “The FOX Sports agreement is a cornerstone of our overall broadcast strategy, as it has been for more than 20 years. This is a major, mutual commitment between FOX and ARCA to showcase our product to millions of viewers annually in the highest quality live television production format. Our viewers, sponsors, race teams and tracks directly benefit, and it further stabilizes the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards platform for the near term future.”
According to Nielsen Media Research, FS1 is currently available in 84.5 million homes, while FS2 is rapidly growing and now available in more than 52 million U.S. households.
The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards features 20 events at 18 tracks on its 2018 schedule. The series has crowned an ARCA national champion each year since its inaugural season in 1953, and has toured over 200 racetracks in 28 states since its inception. The series tests the abilities of drivers and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the world, annually visiting tracks ranging from 0.4 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both paved and dirt surfaces as well as left- and right-turn road courses.
The Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) is among the leading and most versatile auto racing sanctioning bodies in the country. Founded in 1953 by John and Mildred Marcum, the organization administers more than 100 events each year in multiple racing series, including the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards, the ARCA/CRA Super Series and the ARCA Midwest Tour, plus weekly racing at Toledo and Flat Rock Speedways.
