Trucks In Dover Go Live On SPEED

Miles the Monster was out working on track conditions at Dover on Thursday. He was preparing for the first of three days of racing to come. Thanks to the Speedway PR staff for the pic.

It's been years of complaining for fans who followed the Friday Dover truck series race on Twitter, Facebook and the various NASCAR websites. Since the facility has no lights, the race was actually run in the late afternoon and then aired on a tape-delayed basis in the evening on SPEED.

Needless to say, there was a lot of frustration that SPEED just simply did not air the race live at 5PM and then re-air it that night as scheduled. This year, the network and NASCAR decided to do just that.

Social media is sweeping through NASCAR like nothing before. All elements of the sport have been working hard to see just what new opportunities exist for the use of real time technology in getting information out to the fan base. Tracks, drivers, teams and sponsors have been working hard.

One result of all this information is that tape-delayed or time-shifted NASCAR TV programs have been exposed. In the past, SPEED would just list the truck race as airing at 8:30PM and fans would tune in. The hardcore fans would read the websites and get the results in advance.

These days more and more people have smart phones in their pocket that connect in a flash to streams of sports information. It's virtually impossible to hide things like the time-shifted Sprint Cup Series banquet, qualifying shows or K&N races. It's absolutely impossible for the three national touring series.

SPEED made a solid decision and should not suffer in the evening ratings. Working folks like us will tune-in Friday night when we get home regardless of whether the actual race was telecast live or not. Simply opening the TV window for those able to watch live makes all the sense in the world.

Krista Voda hosts the pre-race show. Rick Allen, Michael Waltrip and Phil Parsons will call the race. Ray Dunlap and Hermie Sadler are the pit reporters. Once again keep an eye on the style of the director as he works to show the largest group of trucks racing and continues to use wider camera shots to keep the racing perspective for the fans at home.

This SPEED production team has constantly delivered a quality product on limited resources and manpower. There is just something to be said for using the TV equipment that is needed to show a race instead of using all the TV equipment possible to show a race.

This post will serve to host your comments on the truck series race from Dover. To add your opinion about the SPEED team before, during or after the telecast just click the comments button. Thanks for stopping by.

Mid-Week Media News And Notes

This week all three of NASCAR's national touring series head to the Dover International Speedway. Here are some news and notes about what is ahead.

Rusty Wallace will again be in the TV booth for ESPN's coverage of the Nationwide Series race on Saturday. Dale Jarrett has the weekend off. Wallace will join Allen Bestwick and Andy Petree to call the race.

After being selected for the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Wallace said he was stunned he was chosen before some of the older pioneers of the sport. Then, he went on to criticize NASCAR for having what he believes are too many Sprint Cup Series races.

"It’s the classic case of supply and demand," he said. "Too much supply and not enough demand. I love NASCAR. It’s been good to me, it’s made me a lot of money. I think it’s OK for me to give my opinion. I don’t think NASCAR would get upset about that. Maybe take four races off the schedule and increase that demand that means so much."

Click here to review a 2011 story where the president of Iowa Speedway discusses his desire to obtain a Sprint Cup Series race date. Wallace designed the track and is part of the ownership group.

After years of pushing for a change, this year the 5PM Camping World Truck Series race from Dover will be live on SPEED. In years past, this race was tape-delayed until Friday evening. Dover has no lights and while the intentions may have been good, the non-stop world of social media and digital communications makes tape-delaying a NASCAR race ridiculous. Positive move by SPEED to go live and even a better decision to replay the race that same night in primetime.

Dover is the final race of the season for the NASCAR on FOX team. For those of you complaining about Waltrip brothers overload, you better sit down. Darrell confirmed on Twitter that he will be working for SPEED during the TNT portion of the season and Michael will continue to provide color commentary for the Camping World Truck Series.

Both Kyle Petty and Larry McReynolds move away from the RaceDay program on SPEED when the TNT schedule rolls around. It would appear that Darrell will replace Petty during those six races and the buzz is that TV newcomer Matt Clark may replace McReynolds on the panel.

While we do know most of the pieces of the puzzle when TNT begins coverage, what we do not officially know is who will be hosting the six events from the infield. The name that keeps popping up is Krista Voda, although TNT has made nothing official at this point. There have been several faces in that chair over the past five seasons.

ESPN2's NASCAR Now series continues to air at 3PM, but at least the show has a nice new set. Without the Monday one hour roundtable show, the new set gives the program a polished look. Allen Bestwick was back to host early this week, but the afternoon shows are preempted Wednesday and Thursday.

FOX pit reporter Dick Berggren recently confirmed that this will be his last season working on TV. He made clear that he is not retiring, but will continue to work on his publishing interests, spend more time with the family and continue to be involved in the racing world.

Click here to see former ESPN and current NBC Sports Network announcer Bob Jenkins also confirming he is stepping aside after the IndyCar season. Jenkins has been in the motorsports TV game for over three decades. His voice will continue to be heard as the PA announcer for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Bob is a former co-worker and has always been a class act through thick and thin.

Any additional media news that comes along on Wednesday will be added to this post. We invite your opinion on the topics above. Comments may be moderated prior to posting. Thank you.

SportsCenter: The Unwatchable Hour

The program that carried ESPN through the early stages of its existence was SportsCenter. The idea was simple. Use technology to record as many sports highlights as possible and then play them back in one show. There were no rights fees to pay, nothing to negotiate and plenty of sports up in the air to record.

The early version of SportsCenter at 7PM previewed the match-ups of the night and set the table. The 11PM version showed highlights of the East Coast games now over and updated the West Coast in-progress scores. Finally, at 2:30AM in the east, the wrap-up show put all the highlights in one place and then replayed in the morning.

Since that time over thirty years have passed. ESPN has become a global media company with digital businesses of all kinds. While the faces, sets and studio locations have changed one thing has remained constant. ESPN continues to use SportsCenter as the backbone of its existence.

These days, SportsCenter expands to fill the holes in the ESPN TV schedule that have seen various types of programming come and go. National business shows, exercise series and even movies have all been tried and failed. The bottom line is that ESPN struggles in dayparts when no live events are scheduled.

A quick check of the ESPN schedule shows just how valuable sports highlights and news are to the network. On Tuesday, 15 of the 24 hours on the ESPN network programming schedule will be filled by SportsCenter. In essence, SportsCenter is the de facto "filler show" between ESPN's live events.

While it made sense to show timely sports highlights when SportsCenter was made available on a limited basis, the opposite is true these days. The over-exposure of this franchise program has led it to morph into something few believed it could become. Sportscenter is now truly the unwatchable hour.

The late night show now originates from ESPN's Los Angeles studios. The morning and afternoon versions are now live from Bristol. The results of these efforts is often nothing more than a disjointed stream of seemingly random content. Even with the labels of the upcoming stories right on the TV screen, it's become very clear that a lot of this content is being created simply to fill time.

Now with such a demand, the network often focuses SportsCenter around a continual stream of experts who seemingly appear to be on-duty at the network 24 hours a day. From Barry Melrose and his mullet to the hyperactive Herm Edwards, there are always former athletes or coaches available to talk about anything. Their role is to take what should be a highlight and expand it into a full-length program segment. Their presence is often recorded, a fact that is rarely made clear to viewers.

The second wrinkle in the modern SportsCenter is the emergence of the non-story. The reporter assigned to document Tim Tebow's first organized team activity (OTA) as a New York Jet found out what others already knew. There was nothing to report. That no longer matters. Simply by taking a reporter, adding a sports celebrity and showing video of both it becomes content now suitable for the SportsCenter marathon.

What the plethora of in-house experts and the forced presence of non-stories has done is eliminate sports that do not fit the SportsCenter mold. Such is the saga of NASCAR and motorsports in general. Since 2007 and the new eight-year NASCAR TV deal with ESPN, nothing has been a bigger disaster than the lack of consistent coverage on the network's flagship news program.

Here at TDP, we have written story after story on the embarrassing and even comical manner in which the various SportsCenter anchors have tried to deal with NASCAR. Here are a few:

SportsCenter Drops The NASCAR Ball from September of 2008

Why SportsCenter Hates NASCAR  from June of 2011

This weekend both NASCAR and IndyCar ran Sunday races. The Indy 500 was featured on ABC while the Coke 600 was on FOX. Like many other Americans on holiday, I tuned into SportsCenter late Monday morning to watch the highlights and get the follow-up reporting on both races.

Dario Franchitti had won one of the most exciting Indy 500 races in years. This event is the jewel of the ESPN IndyCar TV package. The race featured a furious sequence of passing on the closing laps and a final lap crash that became the story of the race. ABC had left the coverage with many stories untold and missed showing many memorable images.

SportsCenter had no Indy 500 highlights, no follow-up and never even referenced the event during the three hours of programming I recorded.

Popular NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne had finally broken his run of bad luck and won in Charlotte. Danica Patrick dominated the pre-race publicity. Favorite Jimmie Johnson had trouble on pit road. There were stories throughout the field. ESPN carries the final 17 Sprint Cup Series races, including the entire Chase for the Championship.

The SportsCenter shows I recorded had no NASCAR highlights, no results and never referenced the race. Fans have told me an earlier AM version of the show had Rusty Wallace talking about the event. Wallace was in Bristol to appear on the 3PM Monday afternoon NASCAR Now program.

In 2011 some key ESPN staff members were taken on an "immersion trip" to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Click here to read the story. This trip was not arranged because things were going well, but because it was very clear NASCAR's presence on SportsCenter and other ESPN programs continued to be a struggle.

Now, one year later, my Monday SportsCenter experience included Steven A. Smith loudly debating NBA topics, extended analysis in May about the NFL season and a Top Plays feature that did not show the Indy 500 finish.

The unwatchable hour is alive and well. Perhaps that immersion was not quite deep enough.

We invite your opinion on this topic. Comments may be moderated prior to posting.