CNBC Reports, ESPN Avoids And Mayfield Flees

What a wild triple-header it is going to be when NASCAR TV hits the air on Thursday.

The first order of business is a TV special on CNBC at 9PM ET. CNBC's Sports Business Reporter is named Darren Rovell. He is pictured above with NASCAR Chairman Brian France. Rovell tries to cover the economic issues involved in all sports, but that task is impossible. Normally, he winds-up covering exactly the same stick-and-ball beat that appears on SportsCenter every night.

This week, a special is airing called Inside Track: Refueling The Business of NASCAR. Although that title might not be as long as the ones over at Frontstretch.com, it does drive home the point that this is not going to be a regular series. CNBC has simply dipped a toe in the NASCAR water.

Click here to take a look at the official web page for this special. You can view the video on this page if you have broadband access. Even good old Kevin Costner sneaks in as a Web Extra.

The economy has been a topic at TDP since January. The sponsor loss and team mergers during the off-season were painful. Many veteran NASCAR team employees lost their jobs. Many drivers lost their rides. Into this situation, several months late, comes Rovell and CNBC.

What questions he brings and what conclusions he draws will be interesting. Like the IRL, the NHRA and other professional motorsports organizations, NASCAR has seen a significant loss in revenue from manufacturers and sponsors. Hopefully, Rovell will keep things in perspective and stay away from singling-out NASCAR as alone in these troubles. TDP will review the show and have a column up for your comments shortly after it concludes.

There are only two more episodes of NASCAR Now to go before ESPN reaches a milestone. Once Nicole Manske ends the 10AM Saturday version of the show, ESPN will have gone through the entire Fox and TNT season without promoting a single Sprint Cup Series race on television. What an accomplishment for the Worldwide Leader in Sports.

ESPN held NASCAR hostage for almost six months and no one lifted a finger about it. Do you think when NASCAR agreed to let ESPN originate a daily NASCAR news program that not promoting the Sprint Cup Series races was even a possibility? Well, it has happened. Chicagoland is the final non-ESPN Sprint Cup Series race.

Starting Monday, the entire tone of NASCAR Now will change. Each race will be endlessly promoted with detailed "advancer" pieces and interviews arranged specifically to promote the final seventeen Sprint Cup Series events.

ESPN had demanded that Fox and TNT promote the ESPN Nationwide Series races within the Fox and TNT live race broadcasts. In return, ESPN would be nice enough to promote the start time and TV network of the race they had just spent an hour previewing. Needless to say, neither Fox or TNT cared about NASCAR Now so no deal was made.

As we said during the season each time we reported on this ego-driven fiasco, the only people being hurt in this deal are the fans. At a time when NASCAR needed all the TV partners on the same page, ESPN decided to play politics. Six months of not promoting a single Sprint Cup Series race on the NASCAR Now TV series. Shameful.

Click here for the amazing story of "Wrong Way Jeremy Mayfield" and his adventures with the NASCAR drug police. How this did not make it to NASCAR Now, SportsCenter or even the local Charlotte area TV stations is amazing.

It will be even more amazing if Mayfield somehow shows up at the Chicagoland Speedway on Thursday. Stranger things have happened. Regardless of Mayfield's guilt or innocence, this comedy of errors is more reminiscent of the Keystone Cops than a top-notch drug testing company working for a professional sports organization.

While ESPN has taken the challenge of reporting on Mayfield head-on, SPEED has gone to any length to avoid dealing with this subject. Only the RaceDay program has broached the subject, with carefully worded comments towing the NASCAR party line. It should be interesting to see if John Roberts and Hermie Sadler update the Mayfield situation on NASCAR Live at 4:30PM ET from the track.

The complete weekend NASCAR TV schedule is posted on the right side of the TDP main page with times, TV announcers and guests listed.

We welcome your comments on the topics discussed above. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you for stopping by and enjoy your Thursday.

NASCAR's Growing Twitter Mess

It certainly seemed like a good idea when it started. The text, picture and link service called Twitter seemed to be made for NASCAR.

Basically, Twitter allows users to quickly compose and send a message of about two or three sentences in length. Attached to these messages can be a host of elements like pictures, direct web page links and even real time GPS information.

All three of NASCAR's top series quickly established Twitter accounts and now provide continual streams of information about the races, teams and other NASCAR news. New groups of journalists, racetracks and teams joined the growing NASCAR on Twitter movement. Then, the flood-gates opened.

Suddenly, the word "NASCAR" started popping-up on official-looking Twitter accounts seemingly every day. It became apparent very quickly that Twitter does not police the use of the registered trademarks of sports organizations.

Now, Twitter is littered with the word NASCAR on all kinds of accounts. Users like @NASCAR_Nation and @Nascar_News simply re-publish original stories from actual NASCAR journalists and bloggers. These third-party NASCAR pretenders never offer an original word or thought, just use the copyrighted material of others without permission or consent. Amazingly, that does not seem to be a problem for Twitter.

Fans clicking on @NASCARSeries for information find themselves taken to a website for Empire Tickets. This is an example of the growing amount of Twitter spam. Fans are lured into using a source for NASCAR information and then are suddenly directed to either a commercial web page or infected with adware that stays on their computer.

Perhaps, most amazing is Twitter's seemingly total disregard for catching problem accounts at sign-up. There is one impostor Tweeting as @NASCARonESPN right now. One of his latest posts says it best. "Continued astonishment that ESPN hasn't requested return of this user name yet!" it declares.

Update: The "NASCARonESPN" Twitter account has suddenly been suspended. Imagine that.

One of the biggest re-publishers is @Racing_News. Without any original messages or content, this Twitter user has manged to attract over seven thousand followers. In reality, @Racing_News turns out to be KENR-FM, a radio station in Missoula, Montana. Each Twitter link is to a single page where the KENR-FM webmaster has gathered random NASCAR news from the Internet and simply re-published it.

If Twitter is serious about providing a real-time platform for communication, including sports, the company needs to re-think some issues. Currently, Twitter puts the burden of proving copyright infringement or impersonation on the complaining party. Moving to establish a stronger "gatekeeper" presence during sign-up is the only way to stop this problem before it gets out of hand.

Used correctly, Twitter can help NASCAR to share information directly with fans for the first time. The live updates from the tracks, from the public relations staff and from the TV networks are currently changing the way many fans get their information on the sport.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, TDP tweeted Kyle Petty while he was on the air with the TNT coverage from Daytona. We asked a question and Petty responded on TV within minutes. In the following commercial break, he wrote back and asked if he had answered it to our satisfaction. That is truly groundbreaking technology at work for NASCAR fans. And the best part is, there is no charge for Twitter and it is easy to use.

Click here for one of the best lists of NASCAR resources on Twitter. There are also links to other racing series for fans with a broader interest in motorsports. It should be interesting to see how Twitter reacts to these on-going issues over the next several months. If you are interested in more NASCAR information, try Twitter. We would like to know how you like it.

TDP welcomes your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

SPEED Gives Michael Waltrip The Star Treatment

There are few things more awkward to carry live on TV than a NASCAR team press conference. Few can forget the brave face Kyle Petty put on as he announced live on SPEED that the family business had been bought by an investment firm from Boston.

Even the Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Hendrick Motorsports media event was put together with the print, Internet and radio reporters in mind. TV was supposed to record the comments and questions, then move over to record the unveiling of the new car. Needless to say, things did not work out that way for SPEED. The new car was never shown and the live coverage was awkward at best.

Michael Waltrip Racing is making an announcement this Tuesday at 12:30PM ET. Multiple reports in the NASCAR media indicate that Martin Truex Jr. will be announced as the new driver of the NAPA Toyota for 2010. Michael Waltrip is rumored to be taking a part-time driver role next year in select high-profile races.

The question is, does this merit live national TV coverage? SPEED certainly believes it does and will carry this announcement live. The sport basically has only the NASCAR Now program on ESPN2 to handle NASCAR news during the week. As veteran fans know, that TV series originates from Connecticut and does not even have a Mooresville or Concord, NC news bureau.

It seems ironic that SPEED would spend the time and effort to carry this NASCAR announcement live on the same week that the network unveiled "Big Block Thursdays." Click here for the Multichannel News article on this primetime line-up.

SPEED is re-airing an A&E Network series called Jacked about a police squad that chases stolen cars while driving trucks with big bumpers. PINKS All Out is also in the mix. Casual fans may like the spectacle, but drag racers know exactly what numbers their car will run. Rounding out the block is Wrecked. Towing cars in Chicago with the threat of death just around the corner. Well, that is what SPEED needs viewers to believe.

Once again, no type of sanctioned racing is contained in another SPEED programming announcement. None of these programs have any NASCAR content. Series like NASCAR Confidential are nowhere to be found. But for some reason, the MWR press conference is live.

Bob Dillner will be hosting the SPEED coverage from MWR with a start time of 12:30PM scheduled. SPEEDtv.com will also be providing live streaming for fans who cannot get to a TV set but have broadband access. So, MWR is getting a live TV and Internet simulcast from SPEED on Tuesday. Click here for the direct streaming link.

What is your opinion of this coverage? Even the SPEEDtv.com page tells exactly what will be announced. Do you think a driver being hired by a team in July who will not race until February should get live national TV coverage? Could you see ESPNEWS providing this?

On the other hand, maybe this is good for the sport and SPEED needs to do more of it. Exposure for sponsors is key, Truex seems to be a good guy and this is a big move for MWR. What is your opinion?

This post will also host your comments during and after the live SPEED TV coverage.

To add your comment, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.