NASCAR on television in the 1990s
As time passed, more Winston Cup races ended up on TV. ESPN broadcast its first race in 1981, from North Carolina Motor Speedway (its first live race was later in the year at Atlanta International Raceway), and TNN followed in 1991. All Cup races were nationally televised by 1985; networks struck individual deals with track owners, and multiple channels carried racing action. Many races were shown taped and edited on "Wide World of Sports" and syndication services like Mizlou and SETN, but almost all races were live by 1989. By 2000, the last year  of this arrangement, six networks televised at least one Cup series race: CBS, ABC, ESPN, TNN, TBS, and NBC. Also, a growing number of races in the Busch Grand National Series and Craftsman Truck Series were made available for broadcast, and some track owners even threw in support races in lesser series. Likewise, Winston Cup qualifying aired on ESPN2 or regional sports network Prime Network. NASCAR wanted to capitalize on its increased popularity even more, so they decided that future deals would be centralized; that is, the networks would negotiate directly with NASCAR for a regular schedule of telecasts. List  of races televised. 1993. Notes. 1- ABC was originally scheduled to televise this race on 3/14, but the Storm of the Century had it postponed a week. ABC bailed out, so a frozen TNN crew stepped in to show the race; in trade they gave up the Busch Series race they were going to show on that weekend to ESPN. 2- Bonnett drove in this race, making his first start since his sidling crash at Darlington in March of 1990. He crashed in spectacular fashion and joined Squier and Jarrett for the finish of the race. 1995. Notes. 1- For  the Pepsi 400 and Southern 500, ESPN ran what was a bit of prelude to DirecTV's Hotpass. ESPN showed the race, while ESPN2 showed onboard cameras and radio with some of the teams. It did not work out to ESPN's liking and was dropped after that. 2- After being delayed all day due to rain, the race was about to start, but ABC decided to bail out; ESPN showed the race the next day. 1996. Notes. 1- Due to the race being delayed by rain, CBS went to golf and showed the race on 8/4. 1999. 20 years  after its Daytona 500 broadcast, CBS used at least 200 people and more than 80 cameras for their coverage: CBS also planned to use more computerized graphics and a super slow-motion camera with a long lens.