It's Opening Day For ESPN

The on-track action may begin on Friday, but all hands are on deck for ESPN's opening day TV special from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Thursday. NASCAR Now will be one-hour long and will air at 5PM on ESPN2. Unfortunately, the show does not re-air.

Late afternoon on a Thursday is not perhaps the timeslot NASCAR deserves, but fans have learned over the last three years to take what ESPN gives them. The good news is that what ESPN is promising to give is something different.

What the network desperately needs from NASCAR fans is a clean slate. The embarrassing TV fiasco called the Chase for the Championship did almost nothing last season but make everyone mad.

Fans of non-Chase drivers saw them slowly slip off the ESPN radar until they were never seen again unless leading a race. Fans of Chase drivers were hit over the head constantly with the meaningless "points right now" stat as if the race were suddenly going to be halted by locusts.

Even fans of Jimmie Johnson chimed-in last season on ESPN's overkill of that team. There is now a word for what ESPN does when it zooms-in on one topic and beats it to death. It's called "hyper-coverage." No one seems to know quite where it came from, but it's rapidly becoming the thing to do.

This season, ESPN has done all the right things during the ramp-up to these final seventeen races. Feisty Marty Reid is in the broadcast booth, dependable Allen Bestwick will host from the Infield Pit Studio and Dr. Jerry Punch has finally returned to pit road.

Thursday will be the first time ESPN will come on the air as the Sprint Cup Series network of record this season. NASCAR is in a TV tailspin. Critics are coming out of the woodwork because they smell blood in the water. It will not be an easy task to turn this ship around. The good news is that ESPN has the manpower, technology and talent to do just that.

Handcuffed by no online video streaming or RaceBuddy style application, picking the right thing to show to viewers is going to be the key that will either unlock the door to success or send fans running to the NFL when that season opens. The time to show NASCAR fans that things have changed is now.

These final races deserve to be presented as events with a singular focus on the actual racing. The Chase will take care of itself. The points will take care of themselves. Detouring again from the action on the track to tell stories that fit the ESPN script is going to doom this season to failure from the start.

No one is better at setting the tone for a race than Bestwick. His ability to offer exciting and informative commentary is well-known. The fact that ESPN chose to pass him by in the hunt for a new play-by-play announcer continues to amaze many folks.

However, without Punch to drag the telecasts down, this may be Bestwick's best season to date with ESPN. Reid and Bestwick know their respective roles and know how to fill them. Reid said in interviews this week that this is the biggest TV opportunity of his life. Count on him to make the best of it.

Fans who saw Punch at Gateway this past weekend know how he can draw emotion out of NASCAR personalities. Punch is the quintessential reporter. Instead of hanging his head after being replaced in the booth, Punch has used the Nationwide Series races to get back his credibility on the air. His timing is perfect.

Reid has already proven his ability to draw Dale Jarrett out of his polite shell and get him to speak his mind on the air. This was one of the greatest fundamental failures of Punch in the booth. Jarret and Andy Petree spent a great deal of time trying to add play-by-play commentary instead of simply being race analysts.

I will agree to give ESPN a clean slate. Start again, focus on the racing and show us that you know the sport and love it like we do. The NFL opens on September 9 with a special Thursday night game. That gives ESPN six races without competition.

There is perhaps more on the line than ever before as the sport heads down the stretch. NASCAR is counting on ESPN this season to deliver the goods in a season of uncertainty. The talking is over and the first pitch of the regular season is 5PM on Thursday.

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Wednesday TV/Media Notes

Lots of items coming across the TDP desk this week. Here are a few:

ESPN held its annual pre-Sprint Cup Series coverage conference call. We already know it's Marty Reid, Dale Jarret and Andy Petree calling the races. Other than that, there were two very interesting points where TV is concerned. The first is how ESPN is reacting to criticism of post-race issues with the NASCAR TV partners.

Here is Julie Sobieski, ESPN's Programming VP speaking to that issue:

Question: Julie, there's been a lot of complaints this year by fans and others about the coverage from TNT and FOX. Does ESPN pay attention to that at all and do you adjust your broadcast accordingly?

Sobieski: We always pay attention to anything the fans have to say. If we feel that what they're talking about at any given point is relative to our coverage and things we can do better, we always learn from that.

One great example this year of something we've been hearing not just this year but in other years is that fans want a more in‑depth post race experience around the races.

And one of the opportunity that's these 14 races on ESPN affords us this year uniquely is that we'll be able to have SportsCenter, an expanded SportsCenter, on the back end of those ESPN races. And we'll be able to go back, as we would with most other major sports we have on our network, when SportsCenter is on the back end, to be able to go back to the track and do more in depth post race analysis. We're looking forward to that.

That is definitely in response not only to what we've heard from fans, but it is just an opportunity that we're able to provide on ESPN with the schedule and earlier start times as well.

Pretty good answer to that issue, use SportsCenter to host a post-race show. Here is the second topic, ESPN choosing to have it's own "expert" on every post-race show.

Question: Julie, you mentioned earlier about the post‑race show. Weren't you pretty much cutting into SportsCenter and doing the same things last year? Or what is more expanded that you're providing in regards to the post race program?

Sobieski: In some cases that's an hour and 90 minutes to close to three hours on the back end of these telecasts. Having that much time affords us the opportunity to consistently go back to the racetrack and spend time there. We have production that's been working on a list of several specific features and components that we expect to see across SportsCenter that fans can get used to. Carl Edwards being one of the components as a standing guest after each one of our ESPN telecasts.

That's right, starting this weekend in Indy it will be Carl Edwards as ESPN's post-race driver/analyst. You just can't make this stuff up.

Also this week SPEED informed us that Darrell Waltrip is indeed returning to the network as we suggested several weeks ago. Waltrip will replace Elliott Sadler on Trackside and will join John Roberts, Kyle Petty and Kenny Wallace on the SPEED Stage for RaceDay this weekend in Indy.

FOX executive David Hill is now in charge of SPEED and it's pretty clear that DW is the man where Hill is concerned. Expect Waltrip's TV presence to continue and even grow as the season progresses.

Back in the studio, SPEED's Race Hub continues to offer some interesting guests. Wednesday, Jeff Gordon is featured. Thursday brings Penske Racing VP Tim Cindric to review the Gateway situation, which may include penalties announced on Wednesday. Also, truck series director Wayne Auton will be on to make an official announcement about the series.

If you are scheduling TV plans for this weekend, the entire NASCAR TV schedule is listed on the left side of the TDP main page. One show to note is a one-hour NASCAR Now special hosted by Allen Bestwick from Indy on Thursday at 5PM ET. Finally, the one hour Sunday night recap version of NASCAR Now also returns this weekend at 10PM ET.

If any additional information comes along, we will add it to this post. In the meantime, happy to have your comments on these topics. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for stopping by.

ESPN Hopes Fourth Time Is The Charm

It has been a long three years for ESPN where the Sprint Cup Series is concerned. The network stepped into the sport back in 2007 with tons of hype and Brent Musburger at the helm. "You are looking live" did not ring a bell with NASCAR fans and Musburger shuffled off quietly.

This year at Indy, ESPN is hoping the fourth time is the charm. Motorsports veteran Marty Reid has been tapped to lead the network through the final seventeen races of the season, including The Chase for the Championship. Dr. Jerry Punch has returned to pit road after three seasons in the play-by-play role.

Reid will be joined down the stretch by Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree in the TV booth. These two analysts work quite well together and Reid might be the right person to make them click when the pressure is on. This season, the pressure is on in more ways than one.

Last year at this time, ESPN began to hit fans over the head with the Jimmie Johnson stick. By the time the final Chase races rolled around, it was an adoration society complete with slow-motion replays of Johnson's pit stops and stats on each lug nut.

The fan backlash against Johnson was amazing and due in no small part to ESPN's decision to make the world revolve around his every move. At the same time, the network had a real problem. NASCAR was asking one TV telecast to cover three separate agendas.

Click here to read "TV's Rock and a Hard Place" from November of last year. Here is an excerpt:

First, NASCAR fans across the nation are sitting in front of the TV and waiting to see their favorite driver. It does not matter where he is running, how he is running or if he made the Chase. Fans of a certain driver want to see that driver on TV, period.

Secondly, the actual race is underway and the dynamic of the fastest car is being played-out at the front of the pack. There is a story unfolding about who can win the race and who hopes to challenge before the day is over. That has to be followed.

Finally, NASCAR created a playoff points system that demands that 12 cars be treated differently by ESPN for one simple reason. Those cars are now the only 12 that can possibly win the season championship. NASCAR has added a third storyline that trumps the first two and skews the final ten races for many fans.

In many ways, it's a no win. Our suggestion since 2007 has been to simply cover the races as usual and let the points get tallied up at the end. How else can ESPN hope to serve three very different masters?

Reid has shown himself to be independent of the "happy talk" that NASCAR encouraged this season. He has called out the start-and-park cars in each Nationwide Series race and often puts his analysts and pit reporters on the spot where controversial issues are concerned. This is exactly what the sport needs right now.

There is little doubt that ESPN was shaken-up after another tough Sprint Cup Series run last season. This year, fans are coming off a tech-friendly TNT that offered live online video for every race and had reporters Tweeting with fans during the races. ESPN has no online applications other than a scoreboard. Social media plans are still sketchy.

The final TNT race was so loaded with commercials it was almost impossible to watch. Reporter Jeff Gluck's experience of watching this race at home was chronicled in his now infamous "Writer Discovers Unwatchable TV Broadcast" column. Click here to read it.

The good news is that this ESPN crew has been working together on the Nationwide Series races since February. The telecasts have been looking and sounding good. Reid is a feisty leader and the rest of the team feeds off his energy. There is, however, another key element to ESPN turning things around. His name is Allen Bestwick.

This season, Bestwick will not have to deal with the unfortunate circumstance of Punch being in the booth. Bestwick's anchoring from the Infield Pit Studio will be part of an overall exciting telecast. That has never happened in three years.

Bestwick and Reid are going to be the best one-two punch ESPN has ever put on the Sprint Cup Series races. To his credit, Punch landed on his feet and has been working hard on pit road. It might be that the pieces of this puzzle are finally in the right places.

ESPN is in the NASCAR game until 2014. So far, it's been a mixed blessing of exposure for the sport tempered by some very different approaches to televising the actual racing. This season's economic woes and low television ratings promise to bring even more pressure to bear on this very expensive sports property.

Where are you on this issue? Optimistic that new blood will bring positive change or resigned to being hit over the head by the Chase for seventeen weeks?

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