NASCAR Executive VP Addresses Plans To Continue Expanding Internationally After Mexico Inclusion

Ben Kennedy, Executive Vice President of NASCAR, has spoken out on further plans for international expansion of the sport following the announcement that Mexico City will host a points-paying Cup Series race in 2025.

During a discussion with Kevin Harvick on the Happy Hour podcast, Kennedy explained:

“As we think about it, we obviously, think about NASCAR as a company, we think about our broadcast partners, we think about our teams, we think about our drivers, and all the different stakeholders in the industry.

“That was a big part of our conversations, right? As you take our racing to new markets and different places or different types of venues, it naturally should open the door to new opportunities, and a lot of those are partnership opportunities.

“So, I think the good news is ever since last Tuesday, we’ve already had a number of people reach out to us, and hopefully, on the team side, they’ve had some phone calls as well. Some potential new interests that they may not have otherwise had should we be racing that event in the States as an example.”

The ripple effect of the announcement of Mexico has led to speculation about NASCAR’s further international ventures, including possible races in Canada, Europe, or Japan. Although plans for a race in Montreal in 2024 did not come to fruition, the idea of expanding into Canada remains on the table. Kennedy continued:

“I think that opens up a new door for sure and as we think about other markets internationally, we’ve talked about Canada a lot.

“I think that could potentially be an opportunity in the future. Talking abroad, I think the biggest challenge that we have as soon as you start to go abroad, especially when you start to talk about going over water, is naturally we just have so much inventory in our schedule.

“It’s 38 races and if you look at next year’s schedule, we’ll do the Clash, one weekend off, which a lot of people don’t call it an off week, we go to Daytona 500, we have one off week after that in April for Easter, and then we go straight through to the first weekend of November.

“Kind of keeping those two bookends at either side of the schedule it makes it more challenging logistically to go from, let’s just make it up, a Kansas to Brazil or Europe, wherever it might be.”