Readers get the (drive) shaft in motorsports coverage
In mid-August, the U.S.'s premier auto racing sport will compete at a road racing course in Watkins Glen, NY. NASCAR's brutish Cup series cars will race in this rural community Aug. 20. May 2023, Charlotte Motor Speedway. (c) DKassnoff, 2023. But, don't expect The New York Times to cover NASCAR before then. The newspaper's sports section -- now outsourced to The Athletic, its sportsbook subsidiary -- hasn't covered NASCAR since July 2. That's when NASCAR's drivers competed on the rain-soaked streets of Chicago. The Times provided no coverage of their July 30 race in Richmond, VA, or any NASCAR race since early July. The Times has focused its motorsports coverage on Formula 1 racing. These are the expensive, open-wheeled, high performance racing teams once called Grand Prix. This class of racing is controlled by another media company: John Malone's Liberty Media, which purchased Formula 1 in 2017 and returned it to profitability. Visit the Times '