Sunday, the combined forces of ESPN and ABC kick-off a long day of NASCAR.
First up is the one hour edition of NASCAR Now at 10AM Eastern Time on ESPN2. This program is normally hosted by either Erik Kuselias or Ryan Burr. It is live in the ESPN HD studio in Bristol, CT. Stacy Compton, Boris Said, and sometimes Tim Cowlishaw are used in the studio for analysis.
At 3PM, ABC begins its sports day with NASCAR Countdown, which this week will be thirty minutes in length. Suzy Kolber will be hosting the program from the Infield Studio along with Brad Daugherty who the network says is "the voice of the fans." ESPN NASCAR analyst Rusty Wallace usually appears during the first fifteen minutes of this show. Brent Musburger will be on-hand once again to act as the "show host" for the entire ABC programming block.
The network transitions to event coverage at 3:30PM. Dr. Jerry Punch, Rusty Wallace, and Andy Petree offer the race commentary. Allen Bestwick, Mike Massaro, Jamie Little, and Dave Burns are the reporters on pit road.
This is ESPN's first season back in NASCAR, and this track is notorious for big accidents and hot tempers. It will be interesting to note the dynamic between the pit reporters and the drivers as the race progresses.
Note: The Daly Planet has received several emails indicating that Suzy Kolber will not be in Texas on Sunday, but ESPN still lists her as the host. We shall wait and see.
This page will host your comments about NASCAR Now, NASCAR Countdown, and ABC's coverage of the NEXTEL Cup race. You may add your comment before, during, or after these programs. Please keep your focus on the TV issues associated with these programs, and read the rules on the right side of the main page before adding your post.
To give us your opinion, simply click on the COMMENTS button below, and follow the instructions. We do not want your email address, and there is nothing to join. We only want your thoughts on how you think the NASCAR TV partners are doing with these programs today. Thanks for stopping-by The Daly Planet.
232 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 232 of 232I was quite shocked they stayed, even showed a FEW cars going past the start/finish line.
It should be an interesting scramble for SPEED to get things together for Victory Lane.
Taking five minutes out of primetime for ABC was a great move.
Thanks for all your comments, there will be a new column up about the weekend shortly.
JD
SophiaZ123 said...
HELLO NASCAR it's SWEEPS
November 4, 2007 7:36 PM
I think it was a good decision. Football is over by now and more people are at home later in the day.
There was a great Cup race on PRN radio today. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
I hear there were also some cars shown from time to time on ABC, but I didn't watch that much.
I thought this was decent coverage from ABC. The final laps were good and there was less "fluff". Also they stayed for post race.
As scheduled, we have America's Funniest Home Videos joined in progress after a bunch of commericals.
I don't know that we should be grateful they went over time by a whole five minutes guys. Think about the championship post-race which has the exact same ABC schedule as tonight. Will you be grateful if they go off the air at 7:35 PM on nov. 18?
anon 7:40..."decent" coverage?? I will agree, IF I only wanted to watch the last 20 laps!! But I want to see the racing at the beginning, middle & END, and at that-ESPN is failing miserably.
Rather impressive coverage today, although it still has it's kinks. The beginning was rather disjointed with multiple commercial breaks and no pit road follow-ups and the Vince Vaughn interview. The middle was decent, with a few through field run-downs, but still not enough coverage of non-front runners. The end was just as disjointed as the beginning with too many commercials at the wrong times (22 laps to go!?) but they didn't rush off too quickly after the race was over.
Production seems to be improving a bit, but some major bad choices (DraftTrack, pulling camera off burning race car, only showing Gordon and Johnson on first pit stop) still drag the show down. And I'm sorry, but Jerry and Rusty still don't do it for me. Jerry has trouble leading a broadcast and Rusty doesn't keep quiet. If the announce team changes next year, THEN I think the broadcast would be pretty darn good.
Revlon should sign Carl's mom to an endorsement deal for the age defying making she's getting so much free airtime!
Matt good summary can't disagree with anything
I'm shocked that you all think we got a post race. Excepting the winner (did he answer an entire two whole questions or three?) and brief interviews with his crew chief, the 2nd place finsher, and Gordon) we didn't get anything but a rush job. did it even last 10 minutes even as it went to 7:35?
Because the race ran into ABC primetime, we'll able to see the numbers this past 1/2 hour gets in the overnight ratings tomorrow.
If the numbers are decent, then ABC will probably allow overrun into Funniest Home Videos the next two weeks. If the numbers aren't good, then goodbye to even the rushed post-race we had tonight.
JD, what do you think of NASCAR starting the race early? Could it have anything to do with TV or football?
Later starts presumably would bring in more west coast viewers, though then it causes problems with primetime TV as we saw here.
aw sheesh can't type - that should of been Age Defying Make Up for Carl's Mom.
Instead of watching, I talked on the phone through the first half of the race and made a new friend.
I consider it time well spent.
Good ESPN:
- no Aerosmith
- "Up to Speed" included all drivers and not just the Chasers. There's also room for improvement to go deeper into the field though.
- I'm glad they stuck around for post-race interviews instead of switching to ABC World News Tonight or America's Funniest Home Videos, whichever show was on after the race (I don't care which one was on next and the guys in the truck didn't seem to know either obviously, LOL)
Bad ESPN:
- Suzy and Brent
- Missed a restart
- They spent yellow flag time that should have been used to squeeze in a commercial break to instead repeat the Vince Vaughn piece from the pre-race show and then interview him live. Time wasted like this costs viewers green flag racing later in the broadcast when the producer has to catch up on their required number of commercial breaks.
- The graphics department made another mistake identifying a driver, crew member, or race team. This week they displayed David Gilliland as being a member of Yates/Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. Unfortunately many fans are aware that this proposed merger never materialized and the team was instead sold to Doug Yates and re-named Yates Racing. I'm sure Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing appreciated the free exposure though.
- 22 laps to go is far too late in a broadcast for a green flag commercial break.
- I would still like to see better coverage of cars that fall out of the race. I don't believe ESPN ever mentioned why Robby Gordon and David Reutimann went to the garage earlier. It also would have been nice to have more interviews from drivers that fell out - such as Bill Elliott and Kyle Petty who are immersed in a very important race for 35th in owner's points. I would recommend that ESPN add Shannon Spake to their Sunday Cup races to be a roaming garage area reporter. She can be used as the sole person that gathers information about why teams are behind the wall and be there to conduct all interviews as drivers are released from the infield care center.
- They added an even more senseless dimension to draft tracks, this time "downforce". We now have a 4th color to explain on the Draft Track Graphics key. They ran this graphic right before the final restart. All 3 football games going on at that time were within 7 points and all had under 5 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter. Instead of setting the scene for a dramatic finish and resetting the field for the final dash to the finish, they ran this downforce graphic and likely drove away any fans that were bouncing back and forth between channels back to football.
On the email path with NASCAR and also SPEED to find out why this was done. I will update it in my next column.
stricklinfan82 wrote:
'I would recommend that ESPN add Shannon Spake to their Sunday Cup races to be a roaming garage area reporter. She can be used as the sole person that gathers information about why teams are behind the wall and be there to conduct all interviews as drivers are released from the infield care center.'
This is an excellent idea.
Adding to my comment about the above being an excellent idea, it is my understanding that Marty Smith and Angelique Chengelis alternate weeks at the racetrack for Nascar now. They could also be used to alternate with Shannon Spake from the garage area.
Yes, 7 minutes of postrace coverage doesn't exactly leave me singing ESPN's praises. I think it shows that we've come to expect so little we're happy when we get a little more than scraps.
Especially when the race coverage in general left much to be desired. Please learn to let us know what is going on all over the track, not just with a few cars.
There's a real lack of original and in-depth content in this show especially when it's an hour.
November 4, 2007 10:31 AM
Anon 1031 correctly called it here.
As Yogi Berra might have said, "Depth is staying away from ESPN on ABC in droves".
Tried something different today: I listend to the NASCAR Officials channel on NASCAR.com.
My gosh, you wouldn't believe how much the TV guys miss when you hear the officials. Who's off the track, why, are they out of the race, who's The Beneficiary, all sorts of stuff.
ESPN ought to have a PA or someone listen to the radio and give it to the on-air guys.
And, PLEASE, someone tell them to look out the window instead of staring at the TV monitors.
Reading the bottom half of these posts; Interesting that no one has commented on what kind of coverage the race got on ESPN Sportscenter which was on until 7pm Central (25 minutes after the race), or ESPNNews. usually there's some detail here about it.
maybe everybody's like me and has just given up checking those stations for coverage anymore. I waited for Victory Lane.
Oh yeah, I left one thing out of my "BAD ESPN" list:
- They still ignored the lucky dog on every caution but one - that being the only yellow where a Chaser (Kurt Busch) received the free pass. Yes they played Bobby Labonte talking about getting a lap back "earlier" (as ABC put it) but it must have happened multiple cautions before that audio ran on ABC. I believe Ricky Rudd was the lucky dog on the caution immediately preceding ABC airing that radio transmission so it was definitely at least one caution prior to that.
And just to pick a few nits --
Did anyone else notice that during one of the Vizio sports breaks, that the split screen identified the racing as "Live NNCS from PHOENIX??? It was corrected during the next break.
And, there were 43 cars in today's race --- weren't there? You'd never know by just watching.
I try not to watch those stupid Vizio breaks...but thanks for the wrong graphic comment. Think they will get it correct next week? LOL
Nothing much surprises us at this point, does it?
I will just be glad to have the MRN MEN BACK IN THE BOOTH. Those PRN guys try to hog air time and get amused at their own humor. SHEESH.
They can be grating on one's nerves as opposed to MRN with their mature, molasses like voices. And subtle, but funny humor!
:-0
Can anyone tell me if MRN is usually aired on the same radio stations as PRN?
Today was my first time listening to the radio (TV muted) and, HOLY CRAP, did I enjoy the race so much more! I even got some stuff done around the house since I wasn't tied to the living room. Now I'm worried that next week I'll be disappointed when I turn on that station and my race won't be there.
MRN and PRN are likely going to be found on the same station. It's different from city-to-city, but I know that in Illinois our country station, US99, broadcasts the Nascar race each week regardless of whether it is MRN or PRN.
If you liked PRN this weekend, wait until you hear how much better MRN is. I think PRN goes to commercials too often, while MRN does an amazing job at making every lap exciting. Once you hear the difference and realize you could be in the car driving or out in the yard while listening to the radio and have a better race experience, you will probably never go back to strictly watching on television (or put the TV on mute).
The broadcast left a lot of questions unanswered. I know we can look them up on Monday night or Tuesday, but that should be what the announcers do for the fans.
I know that the 30 NN tonight is actually only about 19 minutes if you subtract the commercials and the lead in videos.
They need to sell that DraftTrack on EBay. It is so stupid and they show it when it applies to nothing that is going on in th field.
I hope they do their homework and look at Jimmie's career in total. They keep saying it's about his momentum, luck, the stars are aligned, etc.
Other than Jeff, I don't think any other driver has reached winning 32 races as quickly. He has just been phenominal from the time he started in Cup. The press always names Tony, or Denny, of Kyle.
Well the facts are that Dale Jarrett did it in 603 races and 19 years, Tony in 318, Rusty in 302, Petty in 248, David Pearson in 239, Jimmie in 217, and Jeff in 167 races.
I'm still rooting for Jeff.
Hey Folks,
There is a new column up about the race. Thanks for all your great comments.
JD
Today was my first time listening to the radio (TV muted) and, HOLY CRAP, did I enjoy the race so much more!
Yep, there's a whole race going on out there (not just 12 cars plus whoever crashes), and the radio guys know how to make sure you know about all of it.
Some follow-up to earlier comments:
To Chickpea: It was at Talladega, not Texas, that the beer and soda was thrown at Jeff Gordon. This happened in 2005 when he won under caution, then again in 2007 when he tied the elder Dale Earnhardt for most Cup victories.
To Richard in NC: There was no mention of North Wilkesboro or the SMI purchase of New Hampshire during the telecast.
My girlfriend had a great comment about the race on Sunday. "I hate NASCAR and they make it even worse to watch."
The funny thing is that I watched a classic nascar race the other day and let me tell you, I would love to see it go back to that. Today's Nascar coverage is not tailored to the experienced fan, NASCAR only cares about attracted the new fan. As a business, I don't blame them but I think that they have forgotten what made them so popular.
We never had "draft track", "draft lock" or any of those other fancy things. What we had was RACE coverage.
The one thing we have to remember as older fans, is that we didn't have $20 million sponsors either. They are making the sport much more then it ever was.
As much as I hate to say it, we have to realize that this sport is controlled by the $$ and not the fan.
I would love to see SPEED control all the coverage for NASCAR and not the triple networks that we have now. I think that the drivers and crews respect SPEED much more then they do ESPN/ABC. You never see Stewart or Jr. have fun on the ESPN pre-race coverage, like they do on SPEED.
What can we do? Sadly, nothing. I think that if the ESPN reps will look at items like this blog, then maybe we will see change. Otherwise, I would expect that NASCAR will get smart during its next TV contract negotiations and they will give the contract to the SPEED Network and I am sure NASCAR will eventually own that also.
Post a Comment