Unless you're a Liberty Mutual fan, the final laps of the NASCAR Cup Series at Talladega were not a good watch.
As FOX winds down its portion of the NASCAR Cup schedule, the critiques have been aplenty: overly zoomed-in camera shots (or crowd shots for no reason), a lack of cohesion and energy in the booth and, of course, commercials.
The conversation about commercials in NASCAR broadcasts isn't even remotely new — heck, they made fun of the deluge of ads back in 2006 in "Talladega Nights," when NBC cut to an Applebee's ad during a crash.
When you have TV slots that sometimes go 3 to 4-plus hours, the ads have to go somewhere. Less would be nice, but there has to be some understanding that sometimes they will come at times that are not ideal.
What FOX did during Sunday's Talladega race, though, boggles the mind.
FOX went to a side-by-side commercial break twice in the race's final 20 laps, including the final break, which ended just as the field came to five laps to go.
Going to break this late at any track is unacceptable, and even though Talladega is the series' longest oval track at 2.66 miles.
The final laps of a superspeedway race should be loaded up with tension and excitement about who makes daring moves to the front and whether or not "The Big One" is going to happen. Instead, fans were forced to hear about the next episode of "The Masked Singer" during a crucial moment in the race.
This could've all compounded into an even worse look for FOX if "The Big One" did happen while they were blasting the same Busch ad you've already seen 10 times. Instead, FOX got lucky and no big wreck actually came.
The head-scratching decision even caught some NASCAR drivers' attention.
Why are we under commercial rn
— Christian Eckes (@christianeckes) April 27, 2025
Commercials at Talladega with 6 laps to go is insane work.
— Garrett Smithley (@GarrettSmithley) April 27, 2025
And of course, NASCAR Twitter had plenty to say.
This is why people talk trash about Fox. We are 6 to go at Talladega and are side by side with commercials… unreal lack of awareness about how to showcase the product.
— Greg Matherne (@GMatherne84) April 27, 2025
I’ll never understand why Fox spends the entire race trying to build up the excitement and drama of the last 20 laps during drafting races, just to cut to a 5 minute commercial break when they get there.
— Colton Cranmore (@CranmoreColton) April 27, 2025
Fans hoping for a better broadcast package can take solace that NASCAR Cup debuts on Prime for its first-ever race in just under a month for the Coca-Cola 600.