Goodbye Nationwide Series, hello Xfinity Series

The Nationwide Series is no more. The insurance company that replaced Anheuser-Busch as the title sponsor of NASCAR's number two series after the 2007 season has made a move into the Sprint Cup Series to expand its role in the sport. The series is now officially known as the Xfinity Series. Xfinity is a digital cable, home phone and internet service from Comcast, that competes with similar services such as Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse. Comcast notably has an alliance with NBCUniversal, the owner of the NBC and NBC Sports Network television channels, which will play host to the second half of the Cup and Xfinity seasons for the next ten years. Meanwhile, the Cup Series will also soon go through yet another name change, as Sprint has plans to pull out of NASCAR's top series after 2016, a move that could lure cellular phone sponsors back to race teams.