NASCAR May Benefit From ESPN Shake-Up

The morning hours during the week, especially Monday through Wednesday, have always been a problem for ESPN. Back in the early days, ESPN did a non-sports show called Nation's Business Today hosted by Consuelo Mack from Washington, DC.

That gave the network a morning break from sports and seemingly filled a void that has existed on ESPN since the network began back in 1979. For the past several years, ESPN has basically thrown-in the towel and re-aired the late night version of SportsCenter over-and-over again.

This left any breaking NASCAR news or updates to Mike and Mike in the Morning or First Take. Needless to say, both of these programs avoid NASCAR like Superman avoids Kryptonite. When Mike and Mike visited the Texas Motor Speedway last year, they had no NASCAR presence until the final twenty minutes of the multi-hour show.

While some digital cable viewers have ESPN News, the "big boys" in the line-up are ESPN and ESPN2. Now, there is a change on the horizon that may yield some positive results for NASCAR fans. Her name is Hannah Storm.

Pictured above with Joe Montana and last seen anchoring The Early Show on CBS, Storm is a sports veteran with a solid background in the industry. She spent ten years at NBC Sports in a wide variety of roles, and worked at CNN as well.

Storm's new challenge is to take the 9AM through Noon timeslot and reclaim it for ESPN as a live "wheel" of SportsCenter content. As the world has changed, the demand for the news portion of the ESPN TV empire to "refresh itself" has also increased.

Often times, ESPN.com is already reporting breaking news and in-progress stories as the 2:30AM SportsCenter replays yet once again on ESPN in the morning. Basically, sports information technology has prompted this move.

Here is the AP story about the change, which features several interesting points. Storm will be joined by a second anchor in the mornings, although the name of that person has not yet been announced. ESPN has said they will select the person from the existing staff. Hopefully, NASCAR fans will not lose Ryan Burr to this new show.

The upside is that Storm has a hard-nose for news and is known as a no-nonsense person when it comes to determining priorities for stories. This new three hour live window is no doubt an opportunity for ESPN's NASCAR personalities to contribute.

Currently, the gap that exists between SportsCenter and NASCAR is huge. Many of the anchors have no NASCAR knowledge, while others treat the sport as a curiosity. Who can forget Kenny Mayne calling Jeff Gordon "Gordo" and referring to Jimmy Johnson's car as the "per diem" car because $48 is the amount anchors get on the road for expenses. Think that would happen with Joe Torre or Kobe Bryant?

This season, ESPN has turned-around NASCAR Now with the addition of Nicole Manske and Allen Bestwick. ESPNEWS has stepped-up to the plate with live post-race coverage from the Infield Media Center after every Cup race. While it is clear there is no reaching stick-and-ball crazy shows like Mike and Mike or First Take, there is now a new glimmer of hope on the horizon for SportsCenter.

The new live morning version of SportsCenter starts in August, just in time to welcome Dale Jarrett with his review of the Brickyard 400. Hopefully, the new morning SportsCenter crew will open the door and finally allow NASCAR to become a viable part of the most-watched sports program in the world.

Update: The strong rumor is that ESPN.com will "spin-off" a stand-alone site called SportsCenter.com which will be aimed at fans for scores, blogs and interactive content. This would make sense with ESPN ultimately taking SportsCenter live from 6AM through 3PM Eastern Time Monday through Friday in August.

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In-Progress In Charlotte: "RaceDay" And Sprint Cup Race

SPEED kicks-off the live NASCAR programming with a two hour RaceDay at 3PM Eastern Time. That will be lead into the NASCAR on Fox coverage of the Coke 600 from the Lowe's Motor Speedway.

John Roberts will host RaceDay, which this season has been a big success for SPEED. A double digit increase in TV ratings has been primarily driven by the diversity of content within this show.

Both Kenny Wallace and Jimmy Spencer have fully embraced their roles on this program and understand that their opinions carry a lot of weight with the fans. It is up to the production staff to keep these two in check, and this year that has been done with great success. The "panelists" have been clicking with the fans.

This week, defending race winner Casey Mears will be a guest along with Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne. The show will look at drivers who had their first NASCAR win in Charlotte. It will also review the opening of the new facility at the Victory Junction Camp sponsored by Kurt Busch. Finally, Roberts and company will preview how things are shaping up for the "Chase for the Championship."

Following the Kurt Busch theme, Wendy Venturini will offer her regular "Real Deal" feature profiling Kurt Busch. This season, he certainly has been the forgotten brother and his appearances in the top ten have been sparse.

Rutledge Wood will be reporting from the premier of the new NASCAR '09 video game from EA Sports. Wood is continuing to try and define his role on SPEED with appearances as both a credible reporter and a source of amusement.

Jimmie Johnson will also take TV viewers for a tour of Hendrick Motorsports, which is located right down the road from LMS next to the Concord Airport. Ryan Newman will also appear in a feature on this program and will be driving go-karts. As we said earlier, there is something for everyone on RaceDay.

The full NASCAR on Fox crew takes over at 5PM for the Coke 600. Chris Myers will host the show from the Hollywood Hotel with Jeff Hammond alongside. It will be Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds upstairs in the announce booth. Down on pit road will be Dick Berggren, Matt Yocum, Steve Byrnes and Krista Voda.

There are only two races left in the Fox portion of the Sprint Cup TV package. After this, the team moves to Dover and then is done. There should be a heightened sense of urgency and a concentrated effort to put everything into this telecast as the season begins to wrap-up for Joy and company.

After the race, Victory Lane on SPEED will be on-the-air at 11PM, but it might be wise to put an extra hour of time on the VCR or the DVR. With live racing, you just never know.

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Special: Indy 500 Live TV Forum Is Open

The day is here and the Indy 500 TV programming is set to kick-off.

It will be ESPN2 up first at 11AM Eastern Time with one hour of pre-race programming. Then, ABC will take-over at Noon with another pre-race show and then the event itself.

This is traditionally one of the toughest programs for the ESPN crew that normally handles the IRL races to produce. First of all, Indy has their own in-house TV production company just like NASCAR. IMS Productions will handle the manpower and staff the equipment at the Speedway.

This has led to things being a bit off-balance on the TV side. For those fans who remember the pre-race programming from last year, nothing more needs to be said. This year the pre-race show will no doubt be a little better coordinated.

ABC likes to have a show host for big events, and once again TV viewers will be dealing with Brent Musburger. Although Musburger is clearly a lover of stick-and-ball sports, he has come to understand the Indy 500 quite well.

This fact may come as a surprise to NASCAR fans, who dealt with a clearly out-of-place Musburger in 2007. ESPN has not yet announced if Musburger will return to the ABC Sprint Cup package later this season.

Luckily, the telecast has Marty Reid in the play-by-play position. While he does not have the dramatic flair of a Paul Page or the pipes of a Bob Jenkins, what Reid does have among all types of racing fans is credibility. Beginning with his off-road days and the old SCORE Series, Reid has also been involved in ESPN's NHRA coverage, is the voice of the IRL and fills-in on NASCAR events as needed.

Last season, Reid was involved in the infamous NASCAR Busch Series race from TN where ESPN actually pulled the live broadcast off all the ESPN Networks as the track chaplain was delivering the opening invocation. Once again, college football and NASCAR proved they do not mix. The point being, Reid has dealt with his share of challenges in live racing on TV.

What has IRL fans buzzing and may well get new fans talking is the hilarious combination of personalities alongside of Reid in the Indy 500 booth. Scott Goodyear's reputation as a wholesome and all-around good guy is just as solid as Eddie Cheever's reputation as a guy who is so difficult to deal with he could upset Gandhi.

Both have solid open-wheel experience, but their differences in style and personality make the combination work quite well. Reid may have to spend some of his time calling the race and some of his time playing referee when things get intense. Finally, the ESPN/ABC group may have hit on an effective team of announcers in the booth.

Most fans know TV veteran Jack Arute and ESPN reporter Vince Welch. Those two will play a key role at Indy by handling the pit road stories. Both of these personalities have a lot of experience, and could wind-up being called-on if serious issues arise from on-track incidents. Let us hope that is not the case.

Borrowed from ESPN's NASCAR coverage will be Jamie Little to fill the third pit road role. Little has a tendency to get a bit loud and a bit intense at times when neither is needed. This season, she has done a great job of defining her on-air personality on the NASCAR trail. As a former IRL TV veteran, Little should have no problem fitting-in at this event.

Squarely on the pit road hot-seat is young Brienne Pedigo. Now heading into her second Indy 500, this daughter of Panther Racing's owner has been working hard to gain credibility with the audience. She cut her TV teeth on the USAC broadcasts on the Outdoor Channel and still has some work to do on her TV skills. Now, with a full field and lots of good racing teams, this Indy 500 will provide her some good content to develop as stories during the event.

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