Monday night in New York City the 29th Annual Sports Emmy Awards were given out and NASCAR was well represented. Two of NASCAR's TV partners and its own in-house production group were among the winners.
The NASCAR on Fox gang claimed the Emmy for "Outstanding Live Sports Series."
This is a big category, and included Sunday Night Football, the NBA and the PGA Tour. As we said last season, the Fox crew made great pictures and sound on the Cup races. Add-in a veteran on-air team and the combination speaks for itself.
Many NASCAR fans might cringe when reminded that what may have been their favorite show from NASCAR Images is still on-the-air. NASCAR Images has now become the larger NASCAR Media Group and Beyond the Wheel is now called Quest for the Cup.
That's right, the award winning show that lived for a short while on SPEED is now being produced for VOOM. Once again, the 2007 edition has grabbed the Sports Emmy for "Outstanding Live Event Turnaround."
It was ESPN and Fox that shared honors for the technical work on the NASCAR trail. Both networks received Sports Emmys for "Outstanding Technical Team - Remote." The term remote designates an event that is produced in the field.
As most fans know, NASCAR technical operations for one race have often been compared to the Super Bowl or an Olympic venue. Many companies from in-car camera providers to the folks who build and maintain the production trucks share in this honor.
On the down side, the 2007 Daytona 500 was bested by college football as The Fiesta Bowl took home the prize for "Outstanding Live Sports Special."
Also, the wonderful movie Dale from NMG came up short in the "Outstanding Sports Documentary" and "Outstanding Music Composition" categories. This effort was certainly an award-winner in the minds of many fans.
For some reason, NASCAR Now with Erik Kuselias from last season was not chosen as the "Outstanding Studio Show - Daily." While Inside The NBA on TNT won this round, it might be a very different result next year if ESPN2 can keep the "new" NASCAR Now on its current roll.
There is also a category for "Outstanding Sports Personality." It is divided into play-by-play, studio analyst and event analyst. From 2007, no NASCAR personality appeared in any of these three categories. Perhaps, next year may see Mike Joy, Dale Jarrett and Larry McReynolds names appear on the list.
Finally, ESPN's Draft Track was bested by the new Aim Point technology that The Golf Channel used for PGA and LPGA coverage. TGC won the "George Wensel Technical Achievement Award."
Draft Track has quietly faded from the ESPN coverage, and it will be interesting to see if makes a comeback on the Sprint Cup portion of the ESPN/ABC coverage later this season.
That is basically a wrap-up of most of the Sports Emmy action, with NASCAR coming away with three big category wins. Nominations for the 2008 NASCAR season should be announced in March of next year.
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11 comments:
Thanks for the article to give us the scoop JD.
Forgive me if I dreamed this but I thought the draft tracker made an appearance at Talladega last weekend. IIRC, Dale Jarret I think did the talking. We can only hope and dream it's gone!!
But heck, after the mess on Fox with Bumpercars the entire race, a ONE TIME BRIEF shot of draft tracker was ok.
(did I just say that???)
Sophia,
Actually it was draft lock that was shown last weekend. Can't believe that term stuck.
karen
Thanks for the clarification...or is it semantics! lol
:-)
How come SPEED never wins any awards? They have good shows but I never hear of them winning anything.
Draft Tracker should have been nominated for "most useless TV gimmick".
So that's what happened to Beyond the Wheel. I miss that show. Now that it is called Quest for the Cup, when and where does it air?
Congratulations to the FOX folks. I will point out that since the Fox Director has now won another Emmy in this category, he probably doesn't have any incentive to change anything he's doing.
I didn't know that "Quest for the Cup" was a reworked Beyond the Wheel. I don't think anyone knew that because no one seems to have the VOOM channel, which is sad. SPEED should feel really bad that they let that show get away from them, but somehow I doubt their "Pinks"-obsessed executives care. Too bad.
Speaking of SPEED, it would be nice to see John Roberts get some recognition in the Studio Host category, even if his "studio" is outdoors.
The Fiesta Bowl coverage deserved to win over the Daytona 500 coverage IMO. "Dale" was great, but "Ghosts of Flatbush" (the winner) was also great.
IMO "NASCAR Now" -the current version - has a long way to go to catch up with "Inside the NBA" on TNT. That's a terrific show with a perfect mix of personalities and great player interviews (even if you don't watch all the games, watching/recording Inside the NBA is a must-do). They've gottten better and better each year - so good that NBC (in the past), ABC, and ESPN have "stolen" them for guest analysis for pregame/halftime broadcasts and other programs (Charles Barkley was all over ESPN the other day as "TNT analyst Charles Barkley"), because they know the b-ball fans want to hear from them. The ESPN/ABC NBA shows aren't quite up to par.
Like those other NBA shows, NASCAR Now doesn't quite have the personality mix yet (not even close), or a consistent quality of news and analysis; they're going to have to work very hard to get to that level. But considering NN got nominated last year when it was a horrible show, I assume it's a good bet it'll be nominated again now that's it's improved.
Anon 9:35AM,
Click on the link in the column for ZOOM TV.
JD
As poor as the live coverage has been when it comes to NASCAR races, the fact that they can win awards tells me what a sad state the overall coverage of sports has become.
Actually Anaon 10:59 AM, its the other way around. NASCAR Coverage is great. We just fail to see it sometimes.
Its the glass half full approach.
I love Inside the NBA. It's kinda like the Inside Winston Cup of basketball, except they wear suits or sport coats. It has everything I miss about Inside Winston Cup - good insider breakdwons of what happened in a game (race), and a lot of humor and fun and teasing each other. Though they don't hesitate to put the smackdown on a team/athlete who's tanking or acting stupid. But for some reason the guys on the teams still talk to them and sometimes only to them, I guess because they're fair. Plus like IWC its feels as if they're your buddies or family or something. When EJ the host was gone for his cancer treatment, the welcome back video they put together when he came back to work, from the players in the league brought tears to my eyes (and his). I don't get that "buddy" feeling from any NASCAR shows anymore.
JD, Thanks for pointing me to the link to VOOM in answer to my question about Quest for the Cup.
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