NASCAR Continues To Expand Online Offerings

The ever changing world of online media is especially challenging for NASCAR as a sport. Instead of an organized league like baseball or football, NASCAR is a large group of independent contractors who simply meet to race. The race teams, the sponsors and even many drivers all have their own online presence.

The folks at Turner Sports in Atlanta have revamped the NASCAR.com website several times to try and figure out how to serve all these different interests. Now, they have expanded again to add a presence on MySpace.com for NASCAR fans. Here is the official info:

Turner Sports and MySpace announced today a partnership between the popular social networking platform and Turner Sports-managed NASCAR.COM, the online home of NASCAR.

A custom NASCAR-branded page will live on MySpace embodying MySpace’s multimedia platform by offering videos, news and photos provided by NASCAR.COM, along with socialization capabilities to give users an enriched experience.

Fans may further interact with NASCAR on the MySpace community via the driver gallery where they can find corresponding pages for the athletes. In addition, MySpace will provide promotion to NASCAR.COM’s portfolio of offerings including the Superstore, TNT RaceBuddy and TrackPass subscription products.

Fans can access the official NASCAR page on MySpace at: www.myspace.com/nascar

The NASCAR page on Facebook originated by Turner has proven to be very popular with over 215 thousand fans. Click here to take a look at that page. It is easy to become a Facebook fan and receive lots of information from NASCAR directly.

The final piece of this online puzzle is the rapidly growing Twitter. NASCAR is already established with regular updates on all three national series, the regional touring series and many other sections of the sport including NASCAR.com directly.

The goal of this expansion to MySpace is the same as our recent discussions about ESPN trying to organize its online information. The concept has two parts. The first is for a piece of information to be published and appear on NASCAR.com, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter at the same time. That makes sense, so that everyone gets the same information.

The second part of the puzzle revolves around the fans. Click here for a video on how the Turner gang has reorganized the Community section of NASCAR.com to enable users to establish their own personal presence on that site.

The idea is to cross the traditional technology boundaries and let conversations and updates occur between Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other messaging services. A lot of this came about because of the tremendous popularity of RaceBuddy this summer.

The NASCAR fan response was overwhelming to a free application that provided a live pit reporter, user-selected cameras, team audio and many other features. This is clearly going to become a permanent addition to all Sprint Cup Series races once the TV network politics are settled. With the financial and TV ratings issues facing the sport right now, 2010 might just be the year to make sure this gets done.

So, kudos to the Turner folks for continuing to expand the online offerings. There are many among us who believe that the NASCAR.com website could be better organized, but at least the Atlanta-based company is listening and making changes.

Perhaps, you could take a moment to offer a comment if you actively use NASCAR's Facebook, Twitter or NASCAR.com website. You can also offer your opinion by clicking the comments button below on the new MySpace and expanded Community options we discussed.

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 Hopes To Build On Truck Series Momentum

Let's face it. The Camping World Truck Series jump in TV ratings last week was not just due to a single race in Loudon. The trucks were the second part of a slam-dunk doubleheader on SPEED that was started by the Whelen Modifieds.

Click here for the article over at TruckSeries.com that talks about the nice ratings jump for the trucks. The brief article does not mention the Mods or the fact that Mike Joy and Dick Berggren again did a super job of calling the action in a simple and effective TV telecast. Talk about a great lead-in.

Sure, the trucks put on a good show and the hype from the previous race about the Matt Crafton vs. Ron Hornaday dust-up was in the news. Krista Voda does not usually get involved in petty stories, but she did everything but set up a boxing ring for Crafton to take on all comers during the pre-race show.

SPEED is taking a very deep breath this week as only 31 trucks were originally entered for the 9PM ET Saturday race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Since that time, four more trucks have miraculously turned up and the entry list is now set at 35.

The race in Loudon came down to Kyle Busch being pursued by Kevin Harvick who could not get past his teammate Ron Hornaday. Harvick popped a cork after the event while the old veteran Hornaday watched Busch take the bow with the checkered flag.

With neither Busch or Havick in the Las Vegas race, SPEED is going to be faced with the reality of the truck series. There are perhaps fifteen trucks in the field that have run the entire season. Several are add-ons with familiar names like Max Papis, Brian Ickler and Aric Almirola.

On the flip side, many are clearly field fillers. Fans who watch on TV are not going to see the ten or more trucks that pull off the track and drive right into the garage before the first fuel stop. The actual race itself will look very different from the nice formation fans will see at the start.

While SPEED had all the ingredients in place at Loudon with a great lead-in race and a good field with some Cup drivers, Las Vegas is going to be a very different animal. The competition at the front of the field had better be good, because with a big track like Vegas the field is going to string out quickly.

Voda's Setup this week will no doubt be upbeat with the strong TV ratings and the good racing at Loudon. The pre-race producer has also done a good job of keeping fans up to date this season on the changing cast of characters in the series. Some like Todd Bodine have even come and gone and come back again.

It will be up to Rick Allen to mix the excitement of the trucks at speed with the reality of what is happening in front of the fans. Phil Parsons will also be along to keep a perspective on the handful of trucks truly capable of contending for the win.

On a good note, Johnny Benson will join Allen and Parsons for his final appearance of the season in the SPEED TV booth. Benson is still on injured reserve and considering his options for 2010. Michael Waltrip will be attending to Sprint Cup Series duties in Dover, DE.

There is a live sports car race leading into the CWTS this week. The start time is late for the East Coast and the green flag drops after 9:30PM. It should be interesting to see how many trucks are running at the finish and if the series can once again keep the attention focused on the battles at the front of the pack.

We welcome your comments on this topic. Just click on the comments button below to add your opinion. 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.

NASCAR's Football Nightmare Continues

The enemy has arrived and quickly made its presence known. That is the Charlotte, NC skyline peeking above the home opener for the Carolina Panthers. After a short run of slightly higher TV ratings, the bottom fell out for NASCAR on the first weekend of the head-to-head match-up with the NFL.

As we said last week, it was Allen Bestwick and his NASCAR Countdown pre-race show that first went up against the Sunday 1PM Eastern Time NFL game. Jerry Punch then led his crew into the fray when the race from Loudon, NH began shortly after 2PM. It seems that by then, the damage was already done.

Despite the double file restarts "shootout style" and the compelling stories of Mark Martin and Juan Montoya, the NASCAR TV ratings got thumped. Here is the official information:

ABC’s broadcast of Sunday’s Sylvania 300 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway earned a 2.5 overnight rating from Nielsen Media Research, Street and Smith’s SportsBusiness Daily reports.

The rating is 21.9 percent lower than the 3.2 ABC earned overnight for the race in 2008.

Overnights are the first set of ratings information that becomes available. There will be a more detailed breakdown of this mess available shortly. Needless to say, there are always lots of factors that affect the ratings associated with live sports.

Click here to read the original announcement from NASCAR about creating the Chase for the Championship. Notice that it does not mention the NFL. Despite that fact, make no mistake that the mortal enemy of NASCAR plays Sundays on a 100 yard field and takes three hours of TV time to finish just one game.

The Chase debuted well, but has struggled. Click here for a very good column from Ernie Saxton of Phillyburbs.com about some of the reasons why things have gone astray.

Several weeks ago, Art Weinstein of scenedaily.com offered a column about NASCAR and the NFL. Click here to read it. His point was that the NFL has some problems of its own. On the flipside, NASCAR's problems with the Chase have also been around for a while. Click here for Richard Chang in the New York Times back in 2007.

The bottom line is that the NFL is currently on the kind of roll NASCAR enjoyed a decade ago. The NFL as a whole has momentum and is well supported by event coverage on both broadcast and cable TV networks. A short while ago, the NFL Network also debuted and has been working very hard to develop an identity of its own.

As the Internet allows coverage of sports to expand, the NFL has done a wonderful job of coordinating an amazing amount of coverage for its product on and off the field. While the internal dynamics of the league are completely different from NASCAR, one thing has not changed. The NFL is still the thorn in NASCAR's side during the final three months of the racing season.

Perhaps, you might be able to take a moment and tell us about the decisions you made in terms of watching NASCAR or the NFL this past Sunday and why. Please also feel free to offer your opinions about how the Chase translates itself to TV with the NASCAR on ESPN team presenting all ten of the Chase races on ABC.

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