NASCAR on Thursday will launch its first-ever Substack newsletter, becoming the first major sports league to partner with the email platform, NASCAR chief brand officer Tim Clark told Axios.

Why it matters: It's part of a broader effort by the league to provide younger fans with a closer connection to drivers and their stories off the racetrack.

Zoom in: The newsletter, debuting ahead of NASCAR's 2025 playoffs, will be written by NASCAR's in-house editorial team and will feature stories and content that help readers experience the culture that drives the sport, per Clark.

• For now, NASCAR will launch with one newsletter that will publish two to three times per week. It will be available to subscribers for free, but the league may consider adding a paywall in the future.

📧 Zoom out: The newsletter is part of a broader new media push by NASCAR to lure younger audiences.

• 👾 NASCAR was the first major sports league to launch a Discord channel in 2021. It teamed with Roblox developer Voldex to create a Roblox racing game, Driving Empire, earlier this year.
• 🎥 The league recently invested more than $50 million in a new studio production facility outside Charlotte, North Carolina, and has created three original streaming features: "Full Speed" on Netflix, and "Earnhardt" and "American Thunder: NASCAR to Le Mans" on Amazon.

Follow the money: NASCAR's digital push comes amid a historic seven-year $7.7 billion TV rights agreement that will see its 38 live races broadcast Fox, NBC, TNT Sports and Amazon beginning this season.

• Clark said for the races on Amazon, the average age of viewership for a NASCAR event has come down six years in a span of five weeks.

🏎️ The big picture: The blockbuster success of "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" on Netflix has pushed other sports leagues to reimagine their digital content strategies.

• 🇺🇸 In recent years, NASCAR has tried to lean more heavily into its "authentically Americana" brand identity, as Clark puts it.

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Fivespan Partners has built a stake in the New York Times, pitching that artificial intelligence could further build its subscription base.

Why it matters: The Times is no stranger to activist investors, but it's typically succeeded in warding off threats.

• ValueAct built a 6.7% stake in the Times in 2022 in an attempt to pressure the company on its subscription strategy. But the firm subsequently sold much of its stake following a strong rally in NYT shares in 2023.
• Fivespan was launched by Dylan Haggart and Sarah Coyne, two people who led ValueAct's investment at the Times.

🦾 Zoom in: Fivespan argues that AI could more than double the Times' long-term revenue and profit, according to Bloomberg citing a letter to Fivespan investors.

• The suggestions include text and audio translations, more dynamic paywalls, and low-cost videos.

By the numbers: The Times' stock price, which is up 15% year to date, did not meaningfully move on the news.

⚖️ The big picture: The Times and Wall Street Journal parent News Corp. both have taken a more cautious approach to striking AI deals than some of their publishing peers, but both continue to invest heavily in AI.

• The Times was one of the first news organizations to sue a major AI company when it sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023. News Corp. has sued Perplexity.

🗞️ What to watch: The Gray Lady recently struck a multiyear AI licensing deal with Amazon to bring its journalism to a number of Amazon-owned products and experiences.

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Perplexity announced a new subscription product called Comet Plus yesterday that gives participating publishers an 80% cut of all revenue earned from subscription fees.

Why it matters: The new product will need significant user adoption to ensure its media partners reap meaningful rewards.

🤝 How it works: To start, Perplexity has set aside a $42.5 million pool to compensate early publishing partners that participate in the program, Perplexity's head of publisher partnerships Jessica Chan told Axios.

• That money comes from sales of Comet Plus and Perplexity's existing "Pro" and "Max" subscription products, which will include Comet Plus access for free moving forward.
• In the future, publishers will receive 80% of all revenue from subscriptions to Comet Plus, which will cost users $5 monthly. (Perplexity will retain 20% of the revenue to account for computing costs.)
• Publishing partners will receive a cut from the broader pool depending on the volume of traffic each publisher's content drives.

☄️ Catch up quick: Comet is Perplexity's first effort to formalize a publisher product after launching a broader publisher payment program across its products last year.

🔍 The big picture: In the traditional search era, publishers were incentivized to produce content that ranked high on algorithms promoted by search browsers. That model, Chan said, provided perverse quality incentives.

• Perplexity, she said, is trying to remove guesswork around revenue and reliance on random traffic that forces publishers to try to game the system with clickbait content. "We're really offering more of a transparent payment for participation."

😬 Zoom out: Perplexity's push to compensate publishers comes as it faces several copyright lawsuits and cease and desist letters asking it to stop using content for algorithm training.

What to watch: Perplexity earlier this month made a $34.5 billion bid for Google's Chrome browser, which is by far the most-used internet browser globally.

• Chan called it a "very serious bid" and said the company is committed to keeping Chrome's underlying source code, Chromium, open source.
• Asked whether the company would want to introduce a new type of revenue share for publishers on Chrome — similar to what it's rolling out with Comet — if it won the bid, Chan said, "We'll evaluate all of the best options" as well as "continued investments in this in this publisher program as well."

Top editors from Reuters and the Associated Press sent a joint letter to Israeli officials demanding a "clear explanation" for airstrikes on a Gaza hospital that killed five journalists yesterday, including several contractors and freelancers that worked for both outlets.

Why it matters: The deaths underscore growing fears that Israel's Gaza campaign is endangering journalists at unprecedented levels, threatening global press freedom.

• "We are outraged that independent journalists were among the victims of this strike on the hospital, a location that is protected under international law," Reuters editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni and AP executive editor and senior vice president Julie Pace wrote in their joint statement.
• The Israel Defense Forces' willingness and ability to investigate itself in past incidents, they argue, "rarely result in clarity and action, raising serious questions including whether Israel is deliberately targeting live feeds in order to suppress information."

The big picture: Press freedom groups have been quick to condemn Israeli attacks on Gaza that have resulted in journalist deaths.

• The Committee to Protect Journalists' regional director, Sara Qudah, said Israel's attacks are "the most horrific attacks the press has ever faced in recent history."
• The group has labeled those attacks and other recent strikes that have killed journalists in Gaza as "murders."

What's next: Reporters Without Borders director general Thibaut Bruttin says the group is calling for a UN Security Council meeting to ensure "concrete measures are taken to end impunity for crimes against journalists, protect Palestinian journalists, and open access to the Gaza Strip to all reporters."

Go deeper: Nearly 200 journalists have died so far in the war

Google warned customers yesterday that it may remove Fox Corp.-owned channels, such as Fox Sports, Fox News and Fox Business, from YouTube TV if it doesn't resolve a carriage dispute by 5pm ET tomorrow.

🏈 Why it matters: These types of fights are common between TV carriers and networks ahead of football season, and contracts are typically designed to expire in August for that reason.

• Both parties typically find a way to resolve their disputes within a matter of days or weeks.

💵 Zoom in: In a statement posted Monday, YouTube said Fox "is asking for payments that are far higher than what partners with comparable content offerings receive."

• 👀 The other side: Fox argues that while it remains committed to reaching a "fair" agreement, "we are disappointed that Google continually exploits its outsized influence by proposing terms that are out of step with the marketplace."

By the numbers: YouTube TV now has more than 8 million subscribers, making it one of the largest TV providers in the country.

🔌 The big picture: Typically, these disputes occur between major cable companies and networks, but as digital live TV providers get bigger, these fights are becoming more frequent with streamers.

• The last time a major disagreement like this took place ahead of football season was in 2023 between Disney and Charter. The two parties struck a last-minute distribution deal to avert a blackout of "Monday Night Football" on ESPN for nearly 15 million Charter Spectrum customers.

Netflix and Major League Baseball have struck a distribution deal for the 2026 World Baseball Classic in Japan, bringing 47 live baseball games to the global streamer for the first time.

• 🇯🇵 It's also the first time Netflix will livestream content in Japan.

Why it matters: The deal comes as MLB closes in on a sweeping set of new media rights deals that could see it bringing its local TV games to a larger streamer.

• As part of that new set of deals, Netflix will reportedly will get the rights to air MLB's Home Run Derby for about $50 million a year, per CNBC.

📺 The big picture: MLB is currently trying to renegotiate its national and local broadcast rights after ESPN and the league "mutually agreed" in February to end their 35-year national TV rights deal after this season.

• While MLB's local rights don't come up for renewal until 2028, the league has been eager to include them as part of their current discussions around national rights.
• MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has been eager to nationalize the league's local rights under one streaming entity when the majority expire in three years.

💰What to watch: New reports suggest MLB is close to finalizing a deal that would see NBC acquiring all of the league's Sunday night games and wild card playoff games for about $200 million per year, per CNBC.

• ESPN, which has expressed interest in striking a new MLB deal, would reportedly pay $550 million annually for a new package that includes the ability to license the league's digital out-of-market game package called MLB TV.

Streamers are eyeing splashy in-person experiences to court younger demographics who crave stronger connections with their favorite shows and platforms.

Why it matters: For years, streaming services poured money into digital customer acquisition. But in a saturated and maturing U.S. market, they're stepping outside the screen.

🏡 Driving the news: Netflix revealed details about its new Netflix House locations in Philadelphia and Dallas.

• The permanent in-person entertainment and shopping hubs will open to the public on Nov. 12 (Philadelphia) and Dec. 11 (Dallas). Netflix is planning a third location in Las Vegas in 2027.

State of play: Several top streamers have embraced experiential marketing in recent months.

• 🎧 Spotify brought back Spotify House to CMA Fest this year and partnered with Kona Big Wave on Soundwave Sessions this summer. To promote audiobooks, it hosted a two-day event called The Forbid-Inn in New York this month.
• 🏔️ Paramount+ hosted The Lodge at San Diego Comic-Con last month. Its fifth and final 2025 stop is Formula 1 in Austin in October, but it will return next year with expanded programming, a Paramount spokesperson tells Axios.
• 🪷 HBO Max partnered with the Four Seasons to promote "The White Lotus." Select properties had Thai-inspired activations including wellness cabanas and bars.
• 🦚 Peacock hosted an interactive experience in Los Angeles for "The Traitors" earlier this year. BravoCon, a fan convention dedicated to the network's many popular franchises like "The Real Housewives," returns to Las Vegas in November.

The big picture: Roughly 60% of consumer discretionary income is being spent offline, especially on experiential entertainment, according to PwC.

• PwC partner Bart Spiegel said the 18- to 25-year-old demographic on social media is driving this trend.

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