Fans In A Lurch With No NASCAR TV News

Last December, TDP talked about the role of the various NASCAR-related Internet websites when it came to keeping fans up to date during the off-season.

This December, with the issues confronting the sport and the nation, this high-tech supply-line of information has become vital to communicating the top NASCAR stories as the sport struggles to survive the troubling economy.

The real problem for fans is that NASCAR news coverage on TV comes to a grinding halt after the last wheel is turned at Homestead. Despite the coverage of the three national touring series banquets, the NASCAR TV partners are long gone as Christmas approaches.

A quick search of ESPN and SPEED reveals just how barren the landscape has become. There is no NASCAR-related TV programming scheduled and the 2009 schedules are not yet formulated because of the changes in the testing rules.

Last year, fans enjoyed several weeks of SPEED offering a January testing recap show that featured interviews and testing footage. This season, with no testing allowed, the first cars on the track at Daytona will be in February as Speedweek starts for the Daytona 500 build-up.

Both during this off-season and the last, there has been a constant stream of news and information coming out of the sport in general. Unfortunately, ESPN has packed up NASCAR Now and does not even offer a once-a-week thirty minute show. SPEED has no regular NASCAR news show and puts everything from the SPEED Report to Wind Tunnel on hiatus for the winter.

It certainly would be nice to see reporters like Marty Smith and Wendy Venturini talk about the news from Mooresville, NC. Even nicer would be personalities like Ed Hinton, Darrell Waltrip and Dale Jarrett talking about the wild changes in the sport right now and what it will mean for the future.

While the Sirius NASCAR Channel does a great job of involving the fans and hosting various NASCAR personalities, there is something very different involved in seeing a panel of experts rather than just hearing them.

No matter how much print and Internet content is created, there is a notable absence of personalities from ESPN, SPEED and Fox on TV during this time of the year. The only way to combat this in the future is to allow a news-oriented NASCAR TV series to continue through the off-season. Lack of racing on the track certainly does not equal a lack of NASCAR news being generated by the industry.

Click here to see the 2009 "silly season" team chart from Jayski that will at least give fans a thumbnail view of what the Sprint Cup Series will be putting on the track next season. This is exactly the type of information that should have a place on TV right now.

Perhaps, with the Grand-Am Series testing and racing in Daytona on SPEED in January, that network might revitalize a weekly show like The SPEED Report. Right now, the TV listings for SPEED in January have not yet been made public.

Over at ESPN, NASCAR is non-existent on that family of TV networks. This is the stick-and-ball time of the season and racing is nothing until Daytona in February.

ESPN.com has done a very good job of keeping on top of the NASCAR stories with a combination of writers, but none of them have turned their stories into video segments or aired them on shows like SportsCenter or even ESPNEWS.

This is only the second off-season of the new TV contract. It might be time for both SPEED and ESPN to take a long hard look at how NASCAR fans are being left out in the cold where news, information and discussion of important topics on television are concerned.

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TV Contract Key To Saving NASCAR

The words leap off the page of the New York Times website:

In hindsight, Mr. France’s broadcast deal, which brings in about $500 million a year, may be the main thing that saves NASCAR from ruin.

Click here to read the entire article from Susanna Hamner entitled "NASCAR Sponsors, Hit By Sticker Shock."

Ms. Hamner calls NASCAR "particularly vulnerable" to the problems with the economy and points-out that automakers provide approximately one-third of the total sponsorship in the sport.

“Many of the major sponsors pulling back have been involved in our sport for decades,” NASCAR Chairman France tells Hamner. “They’re making cuts, and we’re affected.”

Perhaps, the most surprising financial figures used in the article were in reference to the Camping World sponsorship of the Truck Series. Hamner quotes Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis on the fact that Camping World is only paying 2 million dollars a year for the title sponsorship, half of what Craftsman was paying in 2007.

“We told them what we could afford,” says Lemonis. “They were very sensitive to us and offered an appropriate price for the market conditions.”

Ultimately, the single consistent source of income for NASCAR may be the scheduled payments from the NASCAR TV partners. In 2005, Mr. France was part of the team that reached a $4.48 billion, eight-year TV deal with ABC-ESPN, Fox, the Speed Channel and TNT.

At the time, this was viewed as icing on the NASCAR cake. Teams and owners were flush with the cash of sponsors standing in line to get involved with the hottest sport in the nation.

TV networks also wanted their piece of the action and were willing to pay top dollar. Now, Hamner suggests the TV contract may be the only thing that allows NASCAR itself to survive this economic downturn.

As Fox, SPEED and ESPN gear-up to start the season in Daytona, it should be interesting to see what changes the TV networks have decided to make in the overall coverage of the sport given the new financial dynamic.

One thing is for sure. NASCAR will continue to get paid in full over the next six years even as many teams in all three of the national touring series struggle just to survive.

There are 63 days until the 2009 Daytona 500.

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"Ride Of Their Lives" Does Re-Air At 4PM On Sunday (CMT Network)

To start this column, click here for the video link to the Ride of their Lives trailer from the CMT website.

When Kevin Costner appeared at the Sprint Cup Banquet, there was some information being given out about about a future film project to which he would lend his voice.

Like many other media members, I assumed it was a project for 2009. As it turns out, The Ride of Their Lives program is airing Saturday, December 13th at 9PM ET on CMT.

One quick check of the NASCAR.com front page reveals absolutely nothing about this project or the fact it is on CMT tonight. Even clicking to the NASCAR.com News Center will not help. The Turner folks who run NASCAR.com are not very kind to programs appearing on other TV networks. It would seem this is the case with CMT.

Here is the CMT summary of the program:

The history and heroes of NASCAR are brought to life through the men and women who lived the dream. The Ride of Their Lives, narrated by Kevin Costner, is a story of family bonds and personal struggle, rebellion and teamwork. These are the threads that weave through the sport's first 60 years and a half century of Daytona 500 races. From the moonshine runners of the postwar years to the superstars of the 21st century, The Ride of Their Lives celebrates a sport that grew from humble Southern roots to become a national spectacle.

This project is being co-produced by The NASCAR Media Group and CMT Films. DALE was the original project that sparked this follow-up. "On the heels of our success with DALE, which was the largest selling sports title ever and was nominated for 2 Emmys, we are pleased to be working again with CMT and with a talent of the stature of Kevin Costner," says Jay Abraham, COO, NASCAR Media Group. "This new film will give fans an exciting inside view of the history and evolution of the sport from the unique perspective of some of the families that made the sport."

So, it looks like fans lucky enough to catch this program will have some final NASCAR-themed TV programming before Christmas. This two hour program has the original airing from 9 to 11PM Saturday, but also re-airs on Sunday from 4 to 6PM Eastern Time.

Update: TDP will NOT have a review of the program. Comcast, my cable provider, apparently has placed CMT on a tier to which I do not subscribe. This is certainly a new development for me as I have enjoyed CMT as a basic cable service for years.

So, it will be up to the NASCAR fans and TV viewers to add your review and comments about this program over the weekend.

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