Saturday, November 21, 2009

NASCAR TV's Super Bowl


It begins at 10 o'clock in the morning and does not miss a beat until 11PM that night. Thirteen straight hours of NASCAR on four different television networks.

There will be thirty-four on-air television personalities involved in just this one day of coverage. They will offer preview shows, on location specials, studio programs, a live race and then four hours of review, commentary and discussion.

Locations involved will be the beach next to the infield lake, the SPEED Stage, the ESPN Infield Pit Studio, the ABC TV booth, the racetrack and Victory Lane. TV reporters will roam the garage, pit road and the Infield Media Center.

The Daytona 500 may welcome racing back after a winter break, but the Super Bowl of NASCAR TV is the final Sprint Cup Series race in Homestead, FL. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent over the previous ten months by the NASCAR TV partners in rights payments and production costs.

Now, the end product is about to be judged by the NASCAR fan base and bring to a conclusion one of the longest and most complicated TV seasons of covering professional sports in North America. Endless man hours, hundreds of thousands of airline miles and thousands of hours of live television have all played a role in shaping NASCAR's 2009 season.

NASCAR Now from ESPN2 will start and end the day. Many TV series, including that one, will end their 2009 run on Sunday. Others will provide one more show on Monday or run right up until the Sprint Cup Series banquet on December 4.

Most of the television people associated with the sport work on NASCAR only. The length of the season and the amount of travel involved make it almost impossible to work other days of the week or on other live sporting event series.

TDP will offer three live blogs throughout the day. The pre-race activity beginning at 10AM, the race coverage block beginning at 2:30PM and finally the post-race programming that runs from 7 to 11PM.

What are your thoughts on this long season of NASCAR TV as the final day approaches? What memories stand out as defining this year of coverage?

To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to drop by The Daly Planet.

3 comments:

terrisanislo said...

I can't believe they only are allowing 3 and some hours for the race coverage. What about the post-race celebrations? I fear it's going to be another one of those days like we've gotten all Chase from dSPN - too much pre- and not enough post-.

Ritchie said...

Strangly enough, it doesn't feel like the superbowl. It feels more like the last day of school. I will miss it in a couple of weeks, but right now I am drained by it.

It could be argued that the season's too long, or that there is too much TV coverage, or I just invest too much into the sport as a fan, but whatever the reason I'm not prepared to treat Homestead race as a big party like everyone treats the Superbowl.

Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in the race and will definitely watch it, but February seems like a long time ago.

Anonymous said...

on esbn web site they are asking about seeing history today well i dont know about that but i know we will see jj all day long and nothing else glad iam going to the shine festival to see the real Johnson jr that is