Marty Smith will host TNT Sports' studio show during its slate of five Cup Series races, beginning June 28 at Sonoma.
The five races include Sonoma, Chicago, Atlanta, North Wilkesboro and Indianapolis, a short but notable run that returns Smith to NASCAR coverage on a different network while he remains under contract at.
Smith signed an extension with last month, but the TNT assignment is structured as a side deal for studio work — a move made possible by a widening partnership between TNT Sports and that also covers the transfer of Inside the NBA to.
The arrangement is more than a single personality swap. It follows other sublicensing ties between the two outlets around the Big 12 and the College Football Playoff, and it reflects a deliberate deepening of cooperation between TNT Sports and across multiple sports properties.
Smith first joined in 2006 to cover NASCAR and served as the network's lead NASCAR reporter for SportsCenter and NASCAR Now from 2007 to 2014. Before arriving at he was a senior writer for NASCAR.com, an analyst and host on Speed Channel and a NASCAR analyst for FSN.
Industry chatter had flagged Smith as a possible target for other broadcasters and streamers as early as mid-2024, when he was first mentioned as a potential talent target for both Amazon and TNT. He is represented by CAA agent Matt Kramer.
The tension in the move is clear: Smith has just extended his deal with, yet he will appear on TNT Sports' studio show during a high-profile series of Cup events. Networks are increasingly arranging sublicenses and talent-sharing to manage rights and audiences, and this is a concrete example of how those arrangements play out in personnel decisions.
For Smith, the assignment represents a return to visible NASCAR studio work after years in other roles, while for the networks it is a way to marshal recognizable talent across platforms without full transfers of employment. The June 28 start at Sonoma will be the first public measure of how that split role plays on-air and in the market.
This is not a one-off signal but a clear indicator: the TNT- relationship is moving from occasional cooperation to operational collaboration, and Smith — long familiar to NASCAR viewers — will be one of its first, most visible experiments on the live-race calendar.
