Saturday starts with Nationwide Series qualifying on SPEED at noon ET. Krista Voda will call the action with Jeff Hammond and Larry McReynolds in the TV booth. Bob Dillner and Wendy Venturini are the reporters.
That TV team continues at 1:30PM with coverage of the first of two practice sessions for the Sprint Cup Series teams. It should be interesting to see who has dialed-in their car after a very dynamic qualifying session on Friday.
ESPN2 has a college football game at noon as most NASCAR fans already know. The good news is that the Nationwide Series telecast does not start until 4PM with the pre-race show. The bad news is that ESPN2 is slated to carry Happy Hour at 3PM.
We all know college football runs 3.5 hours and sometimes longer. It should be interesting to see if ESPN2 slides back and tape delays coverage of Happy Hour or if the live practice is just joined in progress in order to get to NNS at 4PM.
Either way, the legacy of college football directly affecting NASCAR telecasts on ESPN2 has continued for the fourth consecutive season. It's a tragic situation for the struggling Nationwide Series that routinely loses the pre-race TV shows for Saturday afternoon races after September.
This week, it's the Sprint Cup Series that is affected with only two races to go in a ten month season. Should ESPN decide to join Happy Hour in progress they may have missed something that happened on track or in the garage that may well affect the Championship. If they delay the hour, they risk losing the entire NNS pre-race show yet again.
We will use this post for comments about the daytime coverage on SPEED and the situation with ESPN right up to the transition point for the NNS event. We will open our normal live blog for TV coverage comments that that time.
To add your opinion on these topics, just click the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.
I still see N'wide coverage on ESPN as a 'glass much more than half full'. When the tracks handled their own TV contracts, there were NO pre-race shows for this series. The tracks made individual arrangements, often with one of the major broadcast networks. The local affiliates then often overrode most of the network race feed in favor of college football, since they had local contracts with the various conferences. Tape delay wasn't an option; I wrote a local station manager who said it was contractually prohibited. Don't even think about practice or qualifying for N'Wide / Busch; those weren't even aired for the Cup series.
ReplyDeleteI think ESPN has missed maybe three laps since since football season started. That's immeasurably better than the local stations used to do. I'll gladly take an abbreviated pre-race as the price of seeing the entire race.
Okay, I'll climb down off the top of the hauler now.
Krista Voda rocks! If anyone can attract an audience, she can do the job. Good luck to her...
ReplyDeleteI saw the new disclaimer on Jayski today. Now I know why you are not there. Bashing ESPN probably made some suit upstairs unhappy. Keep up the good bashing the TV. Maybe they will listen.
ReplyDeleteGlad its a nice day, I'll keep working outside until race time and with standard time back in effect, it will be getting dark anyway.
ReplyDeleteESPN wanted to have their cake and eat it too and they make it quite clear the NASCAR fans, whether N'wide or Sprint series, are 2nd tier to football.
That was not for me! I choose the columns that I send over to Jay. Was on there this week with online streaming story. He's a good guy.
ReplyDeleteThanks to a blowout college football game, ESPN2 was only nine minutes late for the next to last Happy Hour of the year.
ReplyDeleteHow 'bout those WIsconsin Badgers?! Ok, now to NASCAR...
ReplyDeleteVince sounds VERY tired. The day just started!
ReplyDeleteComment and question.
ReplyDeleteComment: Just finished watching trucks from last night. Read the Planet live blog first. Interesting and enriching experience. Y'all oughtta try it. Those people on the Planet are really perceptive. KyBu did not win, though, which means Bowyer cheated somehow, because (repeat after me) "Kyle Busch will win!"
Question: What disclaimer? What did not apply to JD? I checked Jayski and did not see one, though I did vote in the poll. Travis has Danica by 10 points. He is all good, and I have a 13 yr old and all his buddies to prove of it. "If NASCAR is good for Travis, then maybe it is where you get to compete when you grow up and now just for my decrepit dad," seems to be the logic amongst that crowd.
Actually, the "now" in the last sentence should read "not". My fault.
ReplyDeleteHey folks, let's move our comments up to the new NNS race post for PIR.
ReplyDeleteThanks!