Earnhardt Stories: We All Got 'Em (Repost)

Update: It's been a long time since we remembered Dale Earnhardt Sr. This column was originally published in March of 2011.

Lots of fans have been asking about Dale Earnhardt Sr. and his life and times. It's pretty easy to find a record of his accomplishments on the track and a history of his family life, but there is a lot more.

For those of us who worked in NASCAR television in the 80's and 90's, there was little doubt that sooner or later you would encounter Big E. He was a street smart person who could size someone up pretty quickly and had little patience for those with agendas.

Times were different then. Drivers stayed at hotels and ate out locally with everyone else. Lots of problems got solved in hotel bars and sometimes others got started. It wasn't as shiny, corporate or polished. It was a lot of fun.

We are going to encourage folks to add their own Dale Sr. stories on this blog post and see how it goes. I'll start with one of mine. It all began when NASCAR decided to branch out and go race at the Brickyard.

At the time, I was working at Sunbelt Video in Charlotte, NC. This company produced Inside Winston Cup Racing for TNN, did a ton of corporate work for sponsors at the track and generally was responsible for archiving NASCAR race footage. Back then, NASCAR wanted nothing to do with the TV business.

NASCAR decided to create a kind of temporary theme park on the IU-PUI campus with different kinds of interactive stock car attractions. It was designed to get folks in that area up to speed on the sport. It was going to be called NASCAR World.

Sunbelt Video was asked to handle the TV part and gladly said yes. Basically, a big high-tech tent was put in place and inside we built a stage and bleachers for an audience. The idea was to bring in several hundred fans during the days before the race and have radio and TV shows originate from the site.

Back then, This Week in NASCAR with Eli Gold was a weekly one-hour show that featured a driver on live TV answering questions from the audience and phone callers. The featured driver on the final night before the race was going to be Dale Earnhardt Sr.

When practical jokes are played, I am not the one involved in setting them up. As I have been reminded many times in my TV life, I am a wonderful victim. At various times on the road I have been duct taped into my hotel room, put on the wrong flight and famously had my legs shaved by a college women's swim team. That wasn't pretty.

I had absolutely nothing for Dale Earnhardt and he knew it. I was a Boy Scout and he was a heavyweight boxer. I knew my role and this show in Indy was going to be a big moment for both of us. He was set to be driven to the show by a police car and was right on time.

Eli was already on stage, the entire house was packed and Earnhardt was the reason. All he had to do was walk up three little steps, come out from behind Eli and take a seat. I shook his hand, said thanks for coming and left him in the hands of the Stage Manager.

I wanted to see the fans, so I walked around to the front of the big tent and then inside. It had been closed off a while back after being filled with fans in black shirts with the number three on everything they wore. It was just a couple of minutes until air time, the crowd was screaming and everything was perfect.

The show hit the air live, Eli said his hellos and then went to a quick commercial before introducing Earnhardt. It was electric. One of the ushers we hired stood next to me and as Eli began to introduce Dale I said to him quietly that this was going to be fun. Then, it happened.

The usher said, "You think?" I recognized the voice. My head swiveled. Staring me in the face about three inches from my nose was Earnhardt. Eli was looking back for him, the crowd was now standing and the only thing Earnhardt wanted to do was watch me turn a shade of purple that cannot be accurately described in the English language.

Before I could decide to scream, faint or have a heart attack he was gone. He happily walked up the aisle of screaming fans from behind carefully knocking the baseball hats off the ones on the end of the rows. When he got to the chest high stage he got a running start, jumped up on it and slowly stood up. The entire place went nuts.

Eli is a pro who is used to driver antics and he got Earnhardt in the chair. It was finally occurring to the chosen fans that their heads had gotten the famous Earnhardt swat as he came down the aisle. The Dale show was in full effect and yet only two of us knew the reality.

As Eli started into his opening remarks, Earnhardt was slowly unveiling the one trait that every single person who knew him had experienced. As I stood there shaking my head and wondering if my heart would return to a normal rhythm, I was the recipient of one of the most famous shit-eating grins in the known universe.

What made it more special to him was that none of the screaming fans, the show host or even the producer knew what had happened. Earnhardt had seen his opportunity, taken it and was now basking in the glow of his achievement. I just had to sit down.

That's one of my Earnhardt TV stories. Others that have been told to me over the years involve his boating adventures, various activities around town during race weeks and scaring the heck out of fans by stopping by their infield campers.

If you have been around for a while in the sport as a fan or a working type, please feel free to share a story or anecdote about Dale Sr. with us. I appreciate our Twitter friends for encouraging me to offer this topic. To add your comment, just click the comments button below. Thanks for stopping by.

NASCAR's Scene Daily And Rowdy Closed

Update: The story below was originally published on April 3, 2012. Today we learned of 12 sports writers and editors fired from The Sporting News even as it partners with a UK-based company called Perform to chase digital sports rights and invests millions of dollars into this project. Another bad digital decision for this very strange management group.

It's been a long and winding road for The Sporting News (TSN). The weekly "Bible of Baseball" that started publishing in 1886 is now an online publication struggling for an identity. Pictured above is a 1949 edition featuring Jackie Robinson.

In 2006, TSN was purchased by American City Business Journals (ACBJ). If this company sounds familiar, it should. Scenedaily.com and Rowdy.com are two NASCAR online brands owned by ACBJ. The company calls itself the largest publisher of metropolitan newsweeklies in the country and is known for its business journals.

Back in 2008 a new online version of TSN was rolled-out called Sporting News Today. The project was designed to deliver updated sports news in a daily online publication. Click here for a story from sportscircuits.com about the ultimate demise of the product in August of 2011.

In a subsequent move to gain digital market share, ACBJ pulled-off one of the most unpopular moves in recent sports history. Click here for a story from sportsbybrooks.com on how ACBJ paid America Online (AOL) millions to kill the popular AOL Fanhouse and replace it with TSN-branded sports content.

"Our target is to be a top 10 sports site in terms of traffic, and the immediate combination with AOL should satisfy that on day one," TSN president Jeff Price said to paidcontent.org.

Price left Sports Illustrated Digital in April of 2009 after working as SI's Chief Marketing Officer for years before being named president in 2005. His history is one of mergers, agreements for shared content and purchases of smaller sports websites. He joined TSN in February of 2010.

Price's shared content efforts appeared to get a shot in the arm when AOL decided, in what some called a desperate move, to purchase The Huffington Post for over $300 million. Click here for the official press release where the top executives from both companies talk about everything under the sun, except sports coverage.

TSN boasts of its connection to the Huffington Post through the AOL deal. Click here to view the front page at HuffingtonPost.com. To get to sports, users must click the "More" button. The sports tab sits between the "Good News" and "Gay Voices" sections. Once on the sports front page, there are no links to NASCAR or motorsports of any kind. TSN is a tiny link at the bottom of the page.

All of this brings us back to NASCAR and ACBJ's record in the sport. Most fans remember the day in January of 2010 when stories began to appear online about a massive layoff underway inside ACBJ. It was targeted at NASCAR and it was not pretty.

Click here for a link to a Tom Jensen story about the demise of the NASCAR Scene publication. Once the dominant publication in the sport, ACBJ never "got it" during the digital transition and in the end Scene was closed and staff members terminated.

Two of the remaining NASCAR-themed business interests of ACBJ were SceneDaily and Rowdy, both online projects. Rowdy was a small and independent effort led by a group from Charlottesville, VA. ACBJ liked their efforts so much they bought the entire thing and moved the Rowdy staff to Charlotte, NC.

Click here for the note only weeks ago from Rowdy.com co-founder Tom van der Voort about changes to that business. After several years of floundering without direction or support, Rowdy.com was closed. Any remaining NASCAR content will appear on the TSN website.

Tuesday, word began to creep out that this time it was SceneDaily about to be affected. Reporter Bob Pockrass then confirmed that later this week visitors to SceneDaily.com will be redirected to the TSN NASCAR page. Just like that, another stand-alone NASCAR website is gone.

Pockrass advises that he is still working full time on the NASCAR beat for TSN. Click here to view the TSN NASCAR page which features little original content, many links to other news sources and a generic feel. It's clearly a move to put NASCAR content into a much broader online framework within a specific brand.

Price has the backing of top executives at ACBJ who are putting it on the line that he can bring The Sporting News brand back to life and make it a profitable business. With bigger fish to fry, NASCAR is going to take a step back on the sports priority list.

SceneDaily and Rowdy were both good websites that made a concerted effort to provide fans with original content. Thanks to those who worked on them both, your efforts will be missed.

We welcome your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

The Double-Secret Probation Cable Sports Network

Blast from the past: This story was originally posted last fall when the first rumblings of big movement within FOX were underway. Today, FOXSports1 is being formally announced at the FOX "upfront" sales meeting out West. Twitter users can stay updated on this big topic by following TheDalyPlanet account. It should be interesting to see what is being added and what motorsports series and shows are going away.

When an athlete does something wrong, they get put on probation. When this action is to be shielded from the media, the term is secret probation. But the top of the heap is when someone does something that is so outrageous it deserves a special penalty. Then, it's double-secret probation time.

The logo above is from the FOX Sports 1 network in Australia. As you may remember, FOX executives Rupert Murdoch and David Hill both came from down under with a long history in sports TV. FOX operates multiple sports channels in that nation. Now, one may be making the trek to the US.

The American version of FOX Sports 1 is the double-secret probation cable TV network. This topic is already causing a big mess and the FOX Sports gang is trying very hard to keep it out of the media at all costs. In this day and age, that is next to impossible.

The hot rumor that has been simmering for months is that FOX Sports is set to end the floundering SPEED channel and rebrand that network into the US version of FOX Sports 1. SPEED has never flourished under the network's various management teams and continues trying to be a racing network on the weekends and a lifestyle/reality network on the weekdays.

The big problem for FOX is that ABC, NBC and CBS all have national cable sports networks up and running right now. FOX is far behind on the new sports TV business model and is playing catch-up. In typical FOX style, throwing money at the issue seems to be the order of the day.

Here is an excerpt from a Thursday Broadcasting & Cable story by John Lafayette on what FOX and parent company News Corp are about to pay to buy high-profile programming for the new network:

News Corp. is stepping up to the plate to take a swing at building a national sports cable network that can take on leader ESPN, sliding past Comcast’s NBCUniversal.

NBCU has already rebranded its Versus network as the NBC Sports Channel and has been hoping to get a boost from a new Major League Baseball deal. But according to published reports, Comcast got left in the on-deck circle because it wasn’t willing to pay as much as News Corp., which will be putting a bigger package of games on both its Fox Network and its Speed auto-racing channel, which will be rebranded as Fox Sports One.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the COO of News Corp was taking questions Thursday from the media after a communications conference in New York City. Sports was very much on the mind of the reporters. Here is Lafayette's round-up on that topic:

News Corp. COO Chase Carey said reports that the company would convert its Speed channel to a national sports network that would compete with ESPN were "rumors and speculation" at this point.

The latest round of stories about a new national network came amid word that News Corp.'s Fox was near a new deal with Major League Baseball that would give it rights to televise more games than its current deal does.

"We obviously haven't announced anything," said Carey, speaking at the Goldman Sachs 21st Annual Communacopia Conference in New York Thursday.

Carey did say, "We do like the sports business," adding that the company's underdeveloped networks like Speed and Fuel "do give us a real opportunity to do some really exciting things."

SPEED is currently on the air riding out existing contracts, including NASCAR. The sanctioning body's deal with the network is up in 2014 and nothing has been said about the continuation of any NASCAR programming on the new network. That is just not a good sign.

The bottom line is that other sports events being acquired for FOX Sports 1 conflict with the large blocks of Friday through Sunday time SPEED now devotes to NASCAR. While FOX does have other cable network outlets like FX and FUEL potentially available for NASCAR shows, it would seem doubtful that the kind of February to November NASCAR programming now carried by SPEED will return.

It will also be very interesting to see if NASCAR returns to the FOX Broadcast Network for Sprint Cup Series races in the new TV contract without the associated programming on a support network like SPEED. Normally, part of the leverage to carry that type of "shoulder" content comes from awarding the same network or media company the big prize of live races.

It was reported this week that on September 14 FOX Sports filed for a trademark on "FOX Sports 1" with the US Patent & Trademark Office. If the lack of original programming on SPEED and the billions about to be spent on Major League Baseball by FOX did not convince you that change was coming, perhaps trademarking the new network nationally will do it.

Working hard to live up to its double-secret probation status, FOX and News Corp have steadfastly denied any change is taking place. No one in the rank-and-file at SPEED has been told anything. If NASCAR has made any determination of future plans with FOX, the sanctioning body is not saying a word.

Change eventually comes to all media properties and in the digital age of new technology this is really no surprise. It's just a shame that NASCAR was never allowed to be the centerpiece of SPEED over the last decade.  It just makes one wonder why these two companies were never able to use that kind of cooperation to grow their own internal brands.

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