You might be surprised how little it would actually cost to buy the time on SPEED for an hour-long highlights show. And be equally surprised how MUCH it costs to PRODUCE it.

Last year's PCA enduro (at Willow, I think?) is a good example of how this sytem works - or the televised Summit 12 Hours from a few years back. A few well-heeled entrants got together, in the name of their sponsors (aka the companies they owned) and made it happen. They did the deal w/SPEED and had a production company shoot and edit the race (actually pretty easy for an enduro with a huge real-time-to-air-time ratio, only need one or two cameras). There was probably terms involved that gave SPEED the opportunity to shop the airtime to other possible show sponsors but much of the commercial time was the same as the logos on the cars that didn't end up on the cutting room floor.

That's how it works. We collectively have some misconceptions, I think, about how cameras just show up at "cool" events, and make a show happen on the telly.

K