Television Coverage Of NASCAR Racing
Vivian Simons
From
Daytona in February and until Daytona in July each year FOX and their
affiliates handle the broadcasting duties for all of the NASCAR Racing Series.
Prior to the Daytona 500 they give us pre-season and pre-race coverage of most
of the aspects involved to get the season started. We get previews of all the
drivers, their prospects for the season based on previous performance, makes of
cars and the always present bias and agendas of the FOX Media personnel. They
say the cream rises to the top each week and history does show that to be true.
Of course, aiding in their climb to the top is all the sponsor money, the
experience of the team crews and the ability to "bend or tweak" the
rules and then get away with it.
While
watching the truck practice at Martinsville, I did notice that FOX Sports 1 did
not tell us there were several new drivers trying to make the race until almost
the end of the first practice. However, we did hear several times how many
Martinsville Grandfather Clocks Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Gordon had collected
by winning Cup races there. We also heard again about the clocks DW had won
while the final truck practice was being broadcast. They also lamented a few
times that Kyle Busch had never won at Martinsville and did not have a clock, but
maybe this is his year to get one.
Occasionally they would mention a new driver when a popular driver
passed one of them during practice. I kept looking at their leader board
crawling across the top of the screen and saw several names I did not recognize.
I wondered who they are, where they came from, and what kind of racing they had
previously done. Most of them were not mentioned by the crew in the broadcast
booth. So please tell me, who are these new drivers and will they get a chance
to advance to Xfinity or Cup?
Through
both practices we heard about Cup drivers Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson racing in
the trucks to get more seat time at Martinsville. After the truck race was over
and the usual Cup Invader won, I thought about my last article which was about
whether the Xfinity series is fair.
Perhaps I should have included the CWTS in the article as well, since
the same thing is happening there. If you did not get a chance to read that
one, you can do so by CLICKING HERE. During the practice, several of
the Pit Reporters talked to some of the drivers. That brought another question
to mind. Who decides which drivers and crew chiefs to interview? Are sponsors involved in that decision? Do
the drivers volunteer? Does NASCAR dictate who gets coverage? Without saying,
we know the announcers in the broadcast booth have their favorites and they
always put them on their list of interviews by the Pit Reporters. Therein comes
some of the bias and favoritism we see so often during the FOX coverage portion
of the year.
I
recognize the fact that some of the drivers they talk about most are ones who
are in the top ten normally and do well week after week during the season. It
is only fair to talk about them because these drivers do deserve the attention
and most of us enjoy hearing about them. However, it should not be at the
expense of excluding others. All fans want to hear their driver's name on
television and so many times they don't get to for several reasons, and we
continue to wonder why. Where do we place blame for this type of coverage or in
some cases, lack of coverage, of all the drivers? There is no definitive answer
to that question.
Sometimes
we are quick to accuse or place blame simply because we don't care for one, or
all of the announcers. Now I ask the following question: could we or would we
do any better? Can we be fair? Or would we do the same thing where our
favorites are concerned? We cannot truthfully answer that question unless we
are actually in that situation. It is very hard to be objective when we are so
passionate about the sport and our favorite team or driver. In reality, there
are a lot of people who can remain unbiased and objective; and through the
years, we have been blessed with a few of them.
I believe
the demands and rules set by the broadcast company have been compromised and
are now more lenient due to changes in what the public wants or expects. Each
decade or era demands less and less satisfaction because the most important
thing in this "me" world today is instant gratification. There are so
many more options of things to do now than there were when a lot of us longtime
fans began attending NASCAR races, and when television started broadcasting
them. These options are taking fans away from the sport in some cases. As far
as the longtime fans like me are concerned, the imperfections in broadcasting
are keeping us less interested and therefore we share television time with
other things. I do want to emphasize the fact that it is not due to loss of
interest in racing; but due to the presentation of what they now call "the show for the fans". Most
of us only want to see competitive racing on the track without all the bells
and whistles and without the “Me” agenda some of the announcers seem to have.
We don't want to hear about just a few of the drivers over and over and we
especially do not want to hear about all the past achievements of members of
the broadcast crew… most of which we had the privilege of watching you
accomplish as they were happening, and they have remained in our memory banks.
We don't want in-car or bumper cams. We just want to hear about all the drivers
and see as much action of the cars or trucks on the track as possible. At this
point, we patiently wait for NBCSN to take over and hopefully give us better
coverage that includes all drivers.
Note to
Darrell Waltrip: All these years you have been using those BBB words to start a
race, so would it be too much to ask that you include Danica more than 2 or 3
times during FOX's coverage when you say "BBB, let's go racing boys"?
For some reason you forget to include her on a regular basis. Isn’t she also a
racer? A lot of fans think so. Another
infamous remark we hear is "Where did he come from?" Duh! He's been
in race all along. You were just so busy watching and commenting about your
favorite that you were not paying attention to the rest of the race. Just
sayin'...
We
welcome your thoughts and opinions in the comment section below. Thank you.
