Saturday, August 25, 2007

ESPN Rebounds With Bristol NEXTEL Cup Telecast


Often in sports, teams stumble upon circumstances that just naturally help their efforts. Sometimes, things start out rather grim and then begin to work themselves out, seemingly without any effort. We refer to those moments as "blessings in disguise."

This weekend, ESPN gave away the practice and qualifying at Bristol Motor Speedway to the SPEED Channel. ESPN had schedule problems, so SPEED covered both the NEXTEL Cup and Busch Series on-track activities. Since SPEED already was showing the Craftsman Truck Series race on Wednesday night, ESPN was basically on the outside looking in most of the time.

Friday night, the network stepped back into the deep end of the pool with a high energy Busch race under the lights. It was a disaster from start to finish. No matter what ESPN tried to do, it simply did not work.

When they showed the leaders, a wreck happened in the pack. When they showed the hard racing, someone passed the leader. When they showed the pit stops under caution, the missed the restart coming out of commercial. They simply could not buy a break, and they certainly needed one.

Saturday night, as the NASCAR Countdown show continued its mediocre stagger toward the race, it seemed that a lot of the Friday ESPN mistakes were repeating themselves. A technical problem appeared on-the-air again, and then another horrible Suzy Kolber live-on-the-grid interview of a top driver. Does anyone ever listen to her questions? The pit reporters must cringe to see her coming their way.

Then, with the turn of the first wheel, the Bristol track delivered a big and unexpected gift to ESPN. Talk about a blessing in disguise. The most aggressive drivers in the top racing series in America lined-up like fifteen year-olds in Driver's Education class and began their Safe Driving lesson.

The long green flag runs at the beginning of this race were just what the doctor ordered for all of the ESPN announcers and production team. It gave everyone a chance to shake-off the problems of Friday night and get back in the groove of delivering a good effort.

Just like a baseball player in a slump, the NASCAR on ESPN gang went back to basics and concentrated on the fundamentals. Staying ahead of the leaders, listening to the announcers, and watching the action on the track really paid-off for this bunch tonight. A two groove track and lots of green flag racing let them do just that.

At Bristol, ESPN learned the hard way that almost anything "extra" that needed to be shown under green flag racing conditions required special treatment. The ESPN video split screen effect of two side-by-side video boxes is outstanding. It is sized correctly, and has a background that does not distract from the live action.

ESPN used the effect for pit reporters, live interviews, and most effectively to showcase more than one on-track battle simultaneously. It worked all the way up until the end of the race. In trying to show viewers that there was action all over the track, the production crew showed so many battles it was just confusing. There was no perspective on the leader inside the last fifteen laps, just lots of "battles in boxes."

In the end, however, the network really showed that they listen to the fans when they again went to a nice big wideshot and showed the top twenty cars battle to the line with the electronic scoring inserted. What a great way to end a race, so fans can not only see where their driver finished, chances are they actually saw him do it. Great move by the Producer and Director to coordinate that in advance.

As we mentioned in an earlier Daly Planet article, someone has been working very hard with Rusty Wallace on his TV performance. It took him a while to acknowledge his rough edges were just not going to make his TV career a smooth one. Also, the absolutely professional performance of Dale Jarrett in relief of Rusty on ESPN telecasts might have hastened that realization.

Wallace is thinking before he speaks the vast majority of the time. Gone are most of the emotional outbursts that consisted of catch phrases and run-on sentences. Saturday night, Rusty handled TV duties by calling the other on-air announcers by name, flowing smoothly between thoughts, and often times handling the "tosses" down to the pit reporters. He is very much improved, and just in time for The Chase.

Our friend Dr. Jerry Punch is having a tough time. He seems to be tired, and at crucial times when the action is hot he simply does not speak and then talks quietly in a monotone. His delivery is still as a reporter, and this was tough at Bristol.

When a former radio guy like Allen Bestwick or even a veteran TV personality like Marty Reid stepped-in for Punch, the difference in the energy of the telecast was amazing. Bestwick may not be "Mr. Personality" on-the-air, but he is clearly a consummate professional who can keep the energy high in a very "Dave Moody" kind of way. Reid was just happy to be there and his enthusiasm is contagious.

Needless to say, long green flag runs at Bristol need some big energy. Searching for something to say while the field tools around nose-to-tail with no one on pit road is a tough row to hoe. Andy Petree again stepped-in and was solid in his information. One of his best abilities is to admit when he has said something wrong before a replay or after a pit report. Fans love a good guess, and they also love someone not too high and mighty to admit they missed something.

Perhaps, the intense media hype of shows like NASCAR Now is interfering with ESPN's ability to speak to drivers. Dale Earnhardt Jr. looked like he was just about ready to deck Mike Massaro when he had to again speak about his step-mom in the pre-race. Jamie Little had several drivers who were almost flinching from her high volume in-your-face style of reporting. Friday night, Dave Burns had two drivers who almost totally ignored him, goofed on him on national TV, and then looked like they wanted to push him out of their pre-race pick-up truck ride.

NASCAR is now seven months into the hype machine of ESPN News, NASCAR Now, NASCAR Countdown, ESPN.com, and even SportsCenter. It looks like this approach has been weighing very heavily on the drivers who are targets of the hype. Tony Stewart already got into it very publicly about ESPN and their "knife in the back" style of reporting on NASCAR.

As the season heads into its most intense time, ESPN may be well-served to make a little peace with the NASCAR drivers instead of reporting on every little family squabble and off-color comment. The lack of happy cooperation with the pit reporters was clear for all to see on this telecast. This is the time of the season when people are tired, tempers are tight, and careers are on the line.

ESPN again finds itself surrounded by SPEED next weekend. SPEED shows the Craftsman Trucks on Saturday late afternoon at Gateway, and they again show the practice and qualifying for both the Busch and NEXTEL Cup Series in California. ESPN has the late Saturday night Busch Series race, and the 7PM Eastern NEXTEL Cup race on Sunday.

California is the last NEXTEL Cup race on ESPN, as the coverage shifts to ABC Sports for the rest of the season. This can only mean one thing for most viewers...two weeks to Brent Musburger.

The Daly Planet welcomes comments from readers. Simply click on the COMMENTS button below, or email editor@thedalyplanet.tv if you wish not to be published. Thanks again for taking the time to stop-by and leave your opinion.

Bristol NEXTEL Cup In-Progress Comments Here


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Saturday's "NASCAR Now" Avoids The Obvious


The comments on the ESPN.com website say it loud and clear. Adding-in the posts on The Daly Planet, Speedtv.com, and some other NASCAR-related websites hammers the point home. NASCAR fans are tired of bad TV.

Friday night, ESPN lost their Busch Series live feed from Bristol, TN with four laps to go at the end of an exciting race. The production team on the ground did they best they could when things returned to recap the action, and still try to get in the post-race interviews. Viewers, however, never really had a handle on what had transpired when the technical problems intervened.

Saturday morning, ESPN's one hour version of NASCAR Now took to the air. Finally, we would be hearing from the ESPN Producer, or perhaps an ESPN spokesman. They would probably apologize for the problem, offer the official explanation, and then NASCAR Now would fill-in the blanks for NASCAR fans of what happened over those last several fantastic laps.

It never happened. It was never addressed. Viewers got the latest "Junior says don't yell at Theresa" news right off the top of the show, but not a thing about what actually happened on Friday night. This is the new reality that ESPN says you must accept. A reality that they craft in production meetings, with public relations people, and with the overwhelming mandate that ESPN cannot be wrong...ever.

The Busch Series highlights did not even appear in the first segment of this show. When they finally did, they did not feature a replay of the last four or five laps. The entire NASCAR Now highlight coverage of the big Busch Series night race at Bristol consisted of fifty seconds of highlights. Less than one minute of time devoted to ESPN's premiere NASCAR event of Friday night.

With the Busch Series race flushed, and the Truck Series race avoided at all costs, ESPN set-out for another hour of self-promotion and rhetoric. That calls for only one person...the wonderfully naive Brad Daugherty. Once again, Daugherty stood front-and-center and talked about the obvious. Between the inane bellowing of host Erik Kuselias, and the endless NASCAR 101 answers of Daugherty, this show is driving NASCAR fans away in droves.

To make sure the nail is in the coffin, NASCAR Now broke out the deadly Tim Cowlishaw. When Daugherty and Cowlishaw both show-up, the program basically becomes Around The NASCAR Horn. This was no exception. Two guys who have never turned a lap or a wrench just sitting around talking. Kuselias gets pumped-up and loves to ask "dangerous" questions of Cowlishaw. He ran a couple of insignificant "Junior hype" questions past Tim, and then promised he would return to pick his winner.

Neil Everett voiced a "package" on Ricky Rudd's career, and it led to a field recap and then the newest wonderful weekly feature. NASCAR Now has decided that each week they must pick the race winner. Since everything at ESPN is based on statistics, ESPN has a feature called The Eliminator. Kuselias loves to explain that it is only past records that dictate the winners in NASCAR, and The Eliminator just picks which "driving robot" will win this week. Talk about denigrating a sport that thrives on personalities.

Boris Said and Stacy Compton continued to be present on the HD Set in Bristol, CT and both of them usually spend the entire hour disagreeing with Cowlishaw and Kuselias. Boris and Stacy must secretly have some wonderful conversations after these shows. When they look around and see Kuselias, Daugherty, Cowlishaw, and Holtzman they absolutely know that this is not Kansas anymore.

One big problem is NASCAR Now actually sends a "pool" reporter like Bob Holtzman to the NEXTEL Cup race each week. Why a reporter who does not cover NASCAR all the time serves to cover ESPN's feature race for this show has never been explained. Imagine, with both the ESPN booth announcers and the pit reporters present on-scene, NASCAR Now continues to use part-time NASCAR reporters like Wendy Nix, David Amber, and Holtzman.

So, another hour of NEXTEL Cup hype is over. The Busch Series gets less than one minute of highlights, no interview with the winner, and no sound from Kyle Busch about his pit road incident. No mention of the ESPN on-air failure, no explanation, and no "make-good" by showing the last five laps which would have taken all of about three minutes. No mention of the Truck race showing off the second groove, even though Truck racing footage was used as the example.

Many NASCAR TV fans will move on to Trackside, which shows-up on the SPEED Channel right after NASCAR Now today. The clash of TV styles could not be more intense. Just as we see two realities on NASCAR Now, we also see two very different realities in the remaining NASCAR TV partners as the sport heads down the stretch.

The "perfect" look of the ESPN on-air announcers makes them all look like they just walked out of "make-up." The informality of SPEED makes some of their guys look like they just "woke-up." This final drive to Homestead should be very interesting.

Tonight's NEXTEL Cup race may be the most challenging assignment of many TV careers. The new track surface allows two wide racing, and that is going to be very new to ESPN. Will they follow the leader, or go to the racing action? NASCAR Now will offer a wrap-up show at midnight. That should be worth recording for any fan, as this race may hold some things a lot of fans have not seen before.

The Daly Planet welcomes comments from readers. Simply click on the COMMENTS button below, or email editor@thedalyplanet.tv if you wish not to be published. Thanks again for taking the time to stop-by and leave your opinion.