After missing the end of the Busch Series race at Bristol a couple of weeks ago and bringing us such wonderful insight from Brad Daugherty as "it's the best 43 drivers in the world" during the Nextel Cup Series race the next night, who knew ESPN could sink much further.Of course, this is ESPN, and with the 4-letter network, anything is once again possible.
On Friday morning, while standing in the garage stall of the famed No. 8 at Richmond International Raceway, pit reporter Jamie Little declared that practice was important, because what happened in practice might dictate what happens in Saturday night's race.
Wow. What happens in practice might have a bearing on the race? Really? No kidding?
It's a good thing Little was there to straighten it all out for us.
I'm thinking it's just a clever little way to fill some space during a 2-hour broadcast covering practice. Then Dr. Jerry Punch begins to pontificate with a little NASCAR Praise 101, straight from the sanctioning body's media relations clearing house.
Mark Martin is a man of his word, Punch tells us, because he told his family that he would only race a partial schedule in 2008, and doggone it, that's what he's going to do when he teams with Aric Almirola in the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolets next year for Dale Earnhardt Inc.
I'm wondering, though, if Mark Martin is such a man of his word, what are we to believe about the end of the 2005 season -- when he said he was retiring to spend more time with his racing son Matt, sold a bunch of farewell tour merchandise to a drooling fan base and then abruptly changed his mind to help friend and owner Jack Roush.
He drove full-time for Roush in 2006 (adding a part-time Truck slate to the full-time Cup side), and then went out and ran a partial Cup series slate in 2007 for Ginn Racing/DEI. That leads one to wonder just how great the friendship between he and Roush was at the end of their partnership -- not only did he ditch Roush, but he ditched Ford and kept on racing in the process.
It's another example of NASCAR and ESPN doing whatever they can to paint a picture of these guys that may not always be accurate. Martin has every right to race as long as he wants to, and for as long as he can find gainful employment. Just don't try and sell me some story about how he's a stand-up guy for still racing after he said he was calling it quits.
He said he was going to, and he changed his mind -- but heaven forbid we look into that at all.
5 comments:
I don't get people who expected ESPN's coverage to be worth anything. For years I had to read and listen to fans claiming that ESPN's "superb" coverage was what made the sport popular in the 1980s and 90s. This is bogus squared. First, ESPN had the worst production values of the varied networks that covered racing; only until the 1990s did its production values catch up to those of CBS/World Sports. Second, the network covered quite a bit of other sports, yet its coverage of such areas as the USFL did nothing for those leagues; only NASCAR grew when ESPN had it for coverage. It was a case of the network latching onto something they knew was good and riding the coattails to become stronger - NASCAR made ESPN, not the other way around.
Third, ESPN paid the lowest rights fees of the varied networks covering the sport - people forget that this is why they lost out in the bidding for the 2001-6 TV package. Only when NBC got out did ESPN become a factor again, and everyone forgets that NBC got out because NASCAR sold them a bill of goods - ratings were lower than forecast and the rights fees were too high by a factor of maybe 100%. So to try and recoup the preposterous rights fees they're paying, ESPN promotes the brand and has to tag on ever-increasing commercial time.
Finally, ESPN has never been that good in sports coverage. Their announcers are almost universally horrible, and self-promotion was egregious even when they had the NASCAR package before.
People should have known from the start that this was never going to work. The NASCAR TV deal belongs on FOX, CBS, and NBC; ESPN needs to be left out.
Talk about bad coverage. The Busch race last night with 2 to go had 8 cars in a pack for 4th on back and they show 2 cars nose to tail for second. The announcers are talking about the 4th place battle while we are watching two guys in front freight train around... This kind of crap is killing their ratings.
I never really expected ESPN's coverage to be anything spectacular, but I did expect them -- after some time to step back -- to learn from mistakes they and other networks made in the past.
Mostly, I'm tired of the dumbing-down of the sport. You wouldn't turn on an NFL broadcast and hear an analyst talk about how important practice is. It's implied.
Give the motorsports fan credit for what they know, and stop pretending that all these people are turning on their TVs for the first time and saying, "Oh -- what's this?!?!? I didn't know they raced cars! Neato!"
"Loose? Tight? What wonderful jargon!"
TB
Regarding NBC's failed "effort" at NASCAR coverage, NBC has no one to blame but its own arrogance and ineptitude - speaking only as a shareholder and fan. NBC was handed a growing TV property and managed to screw it up - possibly so its so-called sports dept. would have a good excuse to spend even more money to get back into NFL coverage. If anyone got sold a bill of goods, it was NASCAR and its fans by NBC. TV ratings for NASCAR stopped climbing only weeks after the No Brain Clowns moved Bull Weber up to lead announcer - and this year he torpedoed TNT's coverage to be consistent.
Richard in NC, what are you talking about? NASCAR sold NBC a bill of goods - they promised bigger ratings than actually delivered, and in exchange NASCAR demanded rights fees that made no sense. The ratings began going down and who was doing the main booth was utterly irrelevent to this decline - it was because the competitive product NASCAR was offering was inferior to what they alwasy promised.
How did NBC screw up a "growing TV property?" How about you stop blaming NBC and start blaming NASCAR for taking too much in rights fees and giving back too little?
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