ESPN Bends And Good TV Things Happen

We hear a lot of drivers who say they race the track and not the other cars. At tough places like Darlington and Bristol the drivers will say that the track can just reach up and bite them even while running alone.

Bristol was the nemesis of ESPN last season and the Friday night Nationwide Series race had continued those struggles. ESPN tried to overlay an entire large-scale TV production on the little bull-ring and the track bit them. The sixteen second laps and fast-paced action just did not permit all the bells and whistles that a big network like ESPN brings along to a live TV event.

Saturday night, things had changed. ESPN made the decision to race the track.

Gone was Tim Brewer and his Tech Center updates under green flag racing. Gone were the pit reporters appearing on-camera during the racing action. Gone were the intrusive SportsCenter updates forced into the program. Gone was the the Infield Pit Center crew appearing on-camera under green. Gone was the continual lower-third on-screen sports ticker.

Added were live interviews with almost all of the drivers out of the race as they departed the Infield Medical Center. Added were race recaps from the pit reporters who were covering the cars and done through the top fifteen. Added were mentions of the veterans like Bill Elliott. In this second swing through Bristol, ESPN had finally gotten it right.

The spirit of Bristol is like no other track on the circuit, so it was a shame that ESPN seemed determined not to share the opening festivities with the viewers. Instead, tired pit reporters asked tired drivers the same tired questions. Luckily, no one fell out of the pick-up trucks as they slowly made their way around the oval with the waving drivers. Meanwhile, skydivers landed, planes roared and the spectacle of it all was unfolding right over the shoulders of the ESPN firesuits.

While Dr. Jerry Punch tried to set things up as full-contact stock car racing and a NASCAR slugfest, veteran fans had other ideas. Wednesday, the track had hosted a fast-paced and exciting Craftsman Truck Series race over on SPEED. Friday, the oval had seen a Nationwide Series race that ended a full 45 minutes earlier than ESPN had predicted. This one was going to be fast.

The TV directing leads the way at Bristol, as the short laps mean the pictures can make or break a telecast. On Saturday, the images were superb and the decisions of what to show the viewers were solid all night long. Lost in translation were still the teams outside of the Top 35 in points and the Top 20 on the track, but the nature of the race kept the focus elsewhere.

After a blistering start, two big wrecks slowed the pace and allowed the network to take a deep breath. The ESPN Producer has opened the door for Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree to jump-in and contribute at anytime. This has greatly helped Punch who is sometimes not the best at live action. In this race, it was Petree who often told viewers when the caution was out and who was involved in the accidents.

Allen Bestwick, Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty were used sparingly when the race was under green due to the reality of the action. All three did have the opportunity to contribute during caution periods and several times to add their audio comments to the on-going discussion. It worked very well.

By mixing the in-car cameras and the "speed shots" around the track, the Director kept the perspective of speed in the broadcast and worked the TV viewers into the action like ESPN rarely had this season. This short-track challenge had been handled by the camera, audio and graphic freelancers. Pictures, sound and info worked well.

The racing contributed to the overall success of the telecast with a good mix of stories. With 30 laps to go, ESPN focused on the fight for the lead and let some other stories lag, but that was a function of the short laps and good action up front.

This was a great recovery from a Friday night of TV misery. It is hard to put away the TV tools, gizmo's and additional announcers that are all right there at the fingertips of the Director and Producer. ESPN focused the telecast on Jarrett, Petree and the pit reporters. Punch was directing traffic and allowing a good portion of the action to be described by his two analysts.

Punch still has a tough time figuring out how to call the final lap, but even he rallied while calling Edwards across the stripe. It was Dale Jarrett who described the rest of the field crossing the line. The ESPN team now moves back to the California Speedway and gets out all the bells and whistles for that big track.

This year, they can look back on Bristol with a batting average of .500 for the weekend and a strong performance on Saturday night.

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TV Commercials Get Viewers Steamed

Normally, we talk about the content that the TV networks offer as they show hundreds of hours of programming that documents the NASCAR scene for eleven months.

Several years back, the TV commercials run in these NASCAR programs began to star the drivers and even the crew chiefs. Advertisers had discovered that these familiar faces sold products and inspired brand loyalty the likes of which they had never known.

Now, NASCAR's economic struggles find sponsors who do not participate in the sport on a full-time basis. Companies like Planters, Old Spice and Go Daddy are sometimes "in" and sometimes "out" on racing weekends.

This past weekend found all three of them "in" and offering commercials that did not sit well with some TV viewers. Since these companies are not in the sport's TV broadcasts all season long, they do not make NASCAR specific commercials with drivers and racing themes. Instead, they imported some other commercials from the entertainment side of the cable TV world.

While Tony Stewart may be fond of Old Spice as a sponsor, many emailers were not fond of the half-man/half-horse character who was standing supposedly naked in the shower. It got creepier when he put his Old Spice combo bodywash/shampoo container on his own man/horse rear-end.

The creepiness reached a fever pitch when his beautiful and normal wife/girlfriend walked-in and stood next to her naked horse/guy/boyfriend/husband thing. Yes, he was a good provider. Not sure what program, network or TV series this commercial was intended for, but good luck on impressing NASCAR fans with the Centaur approach.

Nothing has lit-up the email like the Planters Peanut company commercials. A quick check of NASCAR will tell you that about half of the fans are female. Perhaps, the best way to sell them peanuts is not to have an "ugly girl" smear herself with "Essence of Peanut" and then walk around town while men get run-over and fight just to be near her.

See, she would be nothing except an "ugly girl" if she did not smell like peanuts. Somehow, I just don't think those NASCAR peanuts are flying off the shelves. Perhaps, 2009 might find Planters back in NASCAR with a different advertising agency and commercials.

Over the past several years, a very obnoxious company called Go Daddy has been making a name for itself in two ways. First, it has thrown a lot of money at celebrities and secondly it has produced some of the most sexist and borderline profane commercials every made. This weekend NASCAR fans got a little taste of both.

It was Disney-owned ESPN that showed several different Go Daddy commercials in the two NASCAR races. Some featured Dale Earnhardt Jr. and others who promoted the Go Daddy website services. It was another non-NASCAR commercial that got the email smoking and the parents upset. Once again, where this commercial originally aired may tell the real tale of why and how it wound-up on ESPN.

Two male actors were involved in some office conversation that was totally harmless as presented. Then, the suggestions began where this commercial was headed as the guys talked about "doing" various women. Of course, it meant looking them up on the computer.

The joke concluded as a female office worker walked by just when one of the men was saying that he "already did his mother." The female yelled "pervert" and that was the end of that. This Go Daddy company is really a class act.

Perhaps, we could get Go Daddy and Planters together for a seminar on female NASCAR demographics while the horse/guy/thing waited outside. He does not seem to be very shy about showing off his bodywash/shampoo shelf in public.

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In-Progress From Bristol: Sprint Cup Series Race on ESPN

Things are getting serious this time of the year for both the teams and the TV networks. The ESPN coverage is on the verge of shifting over to the ABC Broadcast Network for The Chase and Saturday night in Bristol should be a good test of the TV crew.

Allen Bestwick will host the hour-long NASCAR Countdown show at 7PM from ESPN's Infield Pit Studio. He will be joined by Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty. This newly-paved track has resulted in some very different racing and that should be the main topic of conversation.

It will be Dr. Jerry Punch calling the play-by-play action from the announce booth in the race tower with Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree alongside for analysis. Down on pit road will be Dave Burns, Shannon Spake, Jamie Little and Mike Massaro.

This crew is coming off a Nationwide race that was so fast and so furious that no one really got a handle on the action until it was almost over. Incidents were missed in commercial, the championship fight took precedence over the racing action and the lack of frequent caution periods made the commercials seem incredibly intrusive. Basically, it was a tough night for the TV gang.

It should be interesting to see if ESPN stripped-down the broadcast to deal with the sixteen second laps and the two-wide racing under green that will probably dominate the night. Almost all the production elements from the SportsCenter updates to the Tech Center explanations and the replaying of the driver audio simply did not fit into the tight time constraints that this race mandates.

ESPN tried to force pre-recorded "soundbites" with the drivers into the telecast. Also, pre-produced "bumpers" of drivers walking-up and looking into the camera before commercial break were used while the race was under green. The results were disastrous. Lap-after-lap of green flag racing was missed.

Sometimes, the network would return from commercial, do a recap of what was missed and then go right back to another commercial break. As a viewer, it was maddening.

On Wednesday night, SPEED aired the Craftsman Truck Series race from this very track. The action was intense and the racing was outstanding. Viewers saw SPEED take a stripped-down approach that put the focus of the telecast on the track and nowhere else. Pit reporters were heard and not seen, all the teams were covered and the commercials were inserted right after a pass was completed. It worked.

There are a lot of forces at work on the ESPN coverage that makes shrinking the telecast very hard. ESPN has ten announcers, a Tech Center, an Infield Pit Studio, SportsCenter updates, a bottom line constant sports crawl and a lot of promos to do.

Even the short Nationwide Series race was so fast that it ended almost forty-five minutes early. If the Sprint Cup Series decides to run side-by-side and fight it out in the pits for position, it could be one of the shortest races in Bristol history.

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