Here are some Monday topics that you have been asking (or yelling) about:
NASCAR Now: The Sunday night 10PM Pacific/1AM Eastern Sprint Cup Series wrap-up show was not on the DVR's and VCR's of NASCAR fans on Monday morning.
Instead, NHRA Drag Racing ran for the full hour. It was interesting to watch NASCAR promos and commercials in the program. This was the only Sunday night version of the series. Still working on how all this happened. Email if you have more info.
Knoxville Nationals: Event rained-out on Saturday night and ran on Sunday. Adam Alexander on the 7PM Sunday SPEED Report said that the track decided not to keep the TV for Sunday.
On Monday, SPEED Tweeted that Lucas Oil made the decision not to pay for Sunday TV coverage. At this point, what we know is that racing fans again are the losers in this mess.
As veteran fans know, this has happened before with the Knoxville Nationals and TDP was right in the middle of it. Many NASCAR drivers own Sprint Car teams and they were none too happy that one night of rain in Iowa would cause the entire TV crew to leave town.
Update: SPEED checks in to say that the weather forecast for Sunday was also for rain and the track made the decision for TV to leave. SPEED advises they were not involved in that decision making process.
Sprint Cup Series post-race: It is correct that ESPN's Jerry Punch did not direct viewers to SportsCenter or ESPNEWS before the MIS telecast left the air. That was a shame because NASCAR continued on the ESPN networks.
Boris Said appeared on SportsCenter with Ryan Burr right after the race for highlights and analysis. The announce team from MIS also appeared during this segment. All involved did a great job.
ESPNEWS covered the post-race extensively. The fact that the late night NASCAR Now did not air as scheduled really made this entire situation far worse for fans who tuned-out after the race.
This is just another issue in the continuing struggles of ESPN to get their arms around the sport. I understand many of you feel Brian Vickers was slighted and his winning interview was embarrassing. If you feel this way, then email ESPN and tell them about it. There are viewer response forms on the ESPN website.
Thanks for all the Tweets and emails, we will keep updating this post as more information on these topics rolls in. Add your comments below.
24 comments:
For the NN delay there was some World Series or some sort of baseball on. Not sure as Jeff was going back and forth between checking between Pinks and ESPN.
PINKS? Gymmie....
Well they all made a bad move on this, living just outside of Knoxville I can tell you straight out it stopped raining in the early afternoon Sunday and did not start again until around 5AM this morning. Speed should have stuck around, but like so many times they screwed the pouch.
Don't get why Lucas Oil dumped the TV coverage; people who follow the series would have watched (or DVR'd) it the next day.
Seems like a waste, since the crew and equipment were already in town.
It wasn't my choice :( Jeff streams on Justin and that's what he was doing. Still paying down some bills before I get cable again. But it was background noise as I was getting my meals together for the week :). And since I was cooking and chopping didn't want to put something I'd enjoy on :D.
Don't worry I haven't gone to the Dark Side...hehehehehehe :)
To clarify the delay for NASCAR Now: The final of the Western Regional to determine a team for the Little League World Series ran very long, at least a half hour and maybe more. Personally, I didn't miss it too much; I prefer to wait for the Monday roundtable anyway.
As for the cancellation of TV coverage from Knoxville, that's a shame. This is arguably the biggest dirt-track car race of the year, and all the teams looked forward not only to the race, but also to the telecast. I hope the fans came out anyway to see a great race. Congratulations to Danny Schatz for the win at the Knoxville Nationals.
BWB, that company has three channels of content jammed into two.
Can hardly wait until the college football season!
I'm sure SPEED is telling the truth that it was Knoxville that pulled the plug. But they are leaving out the fact that they were not going to air the race until at least several days afterwards. I don't think SPEED's Sunday and Monday primetime programs were going to be pre-empted for the Nationals.
This on top of all the additional costs and bad weather situation.
It was announced during the ESPN broadcast of the Sprint Cup Race, CARFAX 400 that the post race edition of NASCAR Now would air at 1 a. m. EDT, Monday, August 17th. The show actually aired at 2 a. m.
OK, let me share with you what I witnessed on ESPNNews that will help us understand the mindset of these people. During the rain delay Sunday afternoon a pit reporter conducted an interview with a driver-I think it was Carl Edwards but I am not sure-who remarked that the weather forecast that morning was zero percent chance of rain and that if he wasn't a racecar driver he would want to be a weatherman because weatherman aren't held accountable when they are incorrect. After the race's conclusion I tuned to ESPNNews for the interviews. Just before or maybe just after the Red Bull group interview, the talking heads on ESPNNews quoted this driver, laughed at his comments, and one stated this driver "was attacking the media".
I have spent the last 24 hours trying to wrap my head around what I heard this man say and I still find his perspective to be unbelievable. I am floored that an ESPN talking head would interpret a humorous comment about incorrect weather predictions to be "attacking the media".
If anyone DVRed ESPNNews following the race-I didn't-would they verify what I witnessed? I am not certain I can believe my ears.
(I can't believe your ears either, Mr. Spock!)
Can't say enough good things about AB as an all purpose guy. Doing an excellent job on NN so far putting things in perspective and keeping the reigns in on Boris.
Craven is a home run on this show. Between SIRIUS and NN he has truly become outspoken and honest without the abrasiveness a Jimmy Spencer provides
We are never going to win this war with BSPN.
We have complained, cajoled and even used reverse psychology and they still don't/won't listen to us.
SPEED must be using BSPNs playbook by not showing Knoxville. For those fans, I feel your pain.
Think this group on NN tonight is doing fine except I don't think Angelique is adding all that information like Boris & Ricky. AB doing a superior job of moderator.
Im guessing Kyle Busch won't be at the White House since he is racing the Trucks Wed. night. Was he slated to be there originally?
The panel on NASCAR Now tonight, with one exception, had the ignorance to tell us that Kyle Busch's behavior at and after the Nationwide race was good. What's wrong with these people?
I was not suprised by this, but you guys really didn't miss much of a 'show'. (I'm usually not up that late... on a Sunday night at least!)
NN's panel is one of the worst on TV. Bestwick may try, but he can't hold the show together. Craven.... fuggedabutit... he is lost. Boris ... saves the show, but that ain't saying much. All in all, mundane, painful commentary about one of the greatest sports on the planet.
I'll take Nicole's solo shows ANY DAY over the Bestwick panel.
ESPN should hire Joe Castello, the host of XM"s old Power Shift show. Talk about a guy who can provide hour after hour after hour of racing commentary and entertainment. Sirius ditched him and the rest of XM's programming once the FCC decided that having programming options was less important than satisfying corporate lobbyists. Bad bad bad.
@Holmes - the driver was Jimmie Johnson.
@David- Kyle was originally supposed to be at the WH on Wednesday. It is possible (barely) for him to still make it for maybe 15 minutes, depending on when the meet and greet is. A lot of things would have to happen just right.
Annon, I agree with Craven and Bestwick. Kyle is never going to win with anyone. If he does what he does everyone hangs him out to dry as a rebel who is self-centered and non-appreciative of his place in the sport. If he becomes a robot and does the typical sponsor sucking up and "well we had a good points day" dribble that is far too prevalent in the sport now, he gets hung out to dry as afraid to speak his mind.
That post race presser was HILARIOUS in my eyes, and Im a Kyle fan! I can agree with Kyle that Brian's sidedraft costed both the 32 and 18 a shot to win, but Brian won this round by saying he doesn't care if Kyle wins or not. Honestly did anyone really win in terms of being PC in that confrontation? No. But because everyone hates Kyle and Brian stood up for himself and to Kyle everyone loved Brian after it.
Ricky is right, Kyle hated to lose but at least he spoke after the race to the media and fullfilled his obligations as such. I've always felt if you don't want the Truth According to Kyle, then don't ask the question. Brian is the same way.
Loved that whole ordeal. Only thing that I frowned on was Kyle hitting Brian's car on pit road. Had they faught: wouldn't have bothered me a bit. A little bit of mischief and mayhem is what we are missing but then again Im not the biggest fan of "mainstream" political correctness such.
Thought it was an excellent NN. Though the opinions on Angellique I fully support. Could have done without her and had someone else adding more to the conversations.
Hope Chad is on TWIN because that will be awfully interesting!
I don't know if Knoxville is a rights-fee or a time-buy issue. If it's a rights-fee issue (Speed pays the track), then they must air it or be fined by the track. If it's a time-buy (from the Twitter message, it seems Lucas Oil did a time-buy), then once the window expires, the obligation ended.
Knoxville needs a bit of further explanation here. This is the third time this decade the Nationals has been burned on television (twice by rain, once by MTV).
After six successful years under The Nashville Network banner (started in 1995), the Nationals' television coverage ended after MTV Networks ransacked the CBS racing office in Charlotte, shutting down The Nashville Network to start developing an "adult male" channel now known as Spike. The first race to go was the 2001 Nationals, later leading to an ASA lawsuit.
The Nationals then bounced around tape delays, with Speed and Outdoor Channel doing coverage days later. But a major split in sprint car racing in 2006 led to the current Nationals format of being an unsanctioned event. As it is unsanctioned, and the track negotiates its own television deal, the track has nobody to blame except itself and its time-buy provider Lucas Oil. The World of Outlaws does not provide television rights or services for this race because of its unsanctioned nature.
If the Nationals returns to World of Outlaws sanction, then WoO could tell Speed, "this race must air live" and that's it. It could be written into the television contract if a rights fee is involved, "Broadcaster shall televise the Knoxville Nationals regardless of the day it finishes." That was in the TNN (and later CBS/TNN) contract with the WoO when they sanctioned the Nationals.
The track has nobody to blame but themselves for this non-television mess. They should have simply put this race back in WoO sanction and the WoO would have written into Speed's contract "E, D, C, B, and A Mains must be televised live".
Thanks for your perspective Bobby, I think that answered a lot of questions that TV viewers had on this issue.
JD
Bobby, the sanctioning of the race has nothing to do with it. The Outlaws races on SPEED are now a time-buy just like Knoxville. In fact, Knoxville's TV deal with SPEED existed for several years before they ever dropped the WoO sanction.
You're talking about a much different era when US networks actually paid for racing programming outside of NASCAR and F1.
The WoO races are a time buy? Who gave you that info?
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