NASCAR on television and radio
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This page is an overview of coverage of NASCAR racing on television and radio.
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[edit] Early years
There were two main sources of NASCAR telecasts before 1979:
- ABC's Wide World of Sports, the famous sports anthology program, provided coverage of select NASCAR Winston Cup Series races in the 1970s. In 1971, it presented a 200-lap race at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in its entirety, the first such broadcast of a NASCAR race. Throughout the 1970s, ABC presented portions of the Daytona 500, Southern 500, and other important races.
- Car & Track, a weekly auto racing show hosted by Bud Lindeman, recapped all of NASCAR's top-series races in the 1960s and '70s in a weekly 30-minute syndicated show. (Today, the show has been repackaged, renamed Back in the Day, and airs on the SPEED Channel with host Dale Earnhardt, Jr.)
[edit] 1979 Daytona 500: The breakthrough
CBS Sports President Neil Pilson and motorsports editor Ken Squier believed that America would watch an entire stock car race live on television. On February 15, 1979, CBSpresented the first flag-to-flag coverage of the Daytona 500. Richard Petty won NASCAR's crown-jewel race for the sixth time, but the big story was the post-race fight on the track's infield between Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison, who crashed together on the final lap. The race drew incredible ratings, in part due to the compelling action both on and off the track, and in part because a major snowstorm on the East Coast kept millions of viewers indoors.
As time passed, more Winston Cup races ended up on TV. ESPN broadcast their first live race in 1981, and TNN followed in 1991. All Cup races were nationally televised; networks struck individual deals with track owners, and multiple channels carried racing action. By 2000, the last year of this arrangement, six networks televised at least one Cup series race: CBS, ABC, ESPN, TNN, TBS, and NBC. Also, a growing number of races in the Busch Series and Craftsman Truck Series were made available for broadcast, and some track owners even threw in support races in lesser series.
NASCAR wanted to capitalize on its increased popularity even more, so they decided that future deals would be centralized; that is, the networks would negotiate directly with NASCAR for a regular schedule of telecasts.
[edit] 2001-06: First central TV deal
That deal was struck on December 15, 1999. Fox Sports, FX, NBC and TNT agreed to pay $2.4 billion for a new six-year package, covering the Winston (now NEXTEL) Cup Series and Busch Series schedules.
- Fox and FX would televise race 1 through 16 of the 2001, 2003, and 2005 seasons and race 2 through 17 of the 2002, 2004, and 2006 seasons. Fox would air the Daytona 500 in the odd-numbered years. All Busch Series races during that part of the season would also be on Fox/FX.
- NBC and TNT would televise the final 17 races of the even-numbered years as well as the Daytona 500 and the last 18 races of the odd-numbered years, as well as all Busch Series races held in that time of the year.
ESPN retained the rights to the Craftsman Truck Series through 2002 under a separate contract. Beginning in 2003, SPEED Channel became the exclusive broadcast home of that series.
[edit] Reaction to changes
The centralized TV deal is causing consternation among many longtime NASCAR fans. The biggest criticisms include an increase in commercial breaks, emphasis on the more popular drivers and teams to the exclusion of others, and the de-emphasis of actual racing coverage in exchange for more fluff and hype.
See NASCAR on Fox#Criticisms for more information on this topic as it specifically relates to the Fox coverage.
[edit] 2007-14: ABC replaces NBC
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On December 12, 2005, NASCAR announced its next TV contract: eight years, $4.8 billion with Fox/SPEED Channel, ABC/ESPN, and TNT.[1] This time, the deal bundles the CTS in with the NEXTEL Cup and Busch series. Here's how this deal will work:
- Fox will show the first 13 Cup races along with the Budweiser Shootout every year, including the Daytona 500. If the 2007 schedule resembles the one for 2006, the contract would run through the first weekend in June and the race at Dover International Speedway.
- TNT, which split from former partner NBC, then picks up the coverage, with the next six telecasts, which covers the following tracks: Pocono, Michigan, Sonoma, Loudon, Daytona (Pepsi 400), and Chicagoland.
- ESPN would then televise the rest of the late summer schedule. The ten races for the Chase for the Nextel Cup will be on ABC under the new Disney brand "ESPN on ABC". The Allstate 400 will begin the package on July 29, 2007.
- SPEED Channel will carry the Gatorade Duel at Daytona, just before the Daytona 500, and the NASCAR NEXTEL All-Star Challenge at Lowe's Motor Speedway in May.
- All of the Disney brands (ESPN, ESPN2, ABC) will carry all Busch Series races during this time.
- SPEED will move two of its Craftsman Truck Series races to Fox.
- Bud pole qualifying will be shown on SPEED, ESPN & ESPN2 with the exception of the Daytona 500 in which it will be shown on FOX.
The broadcast teams for each package are as follows:
- Fox will retain many of the same announcers that have worked for the network since 2001: Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds, and Darrell Waltrip in the booth, pit reporters Steve Byrnes, Dick Berggren, Krista Voda and Matt Yocum; and prerace hosts Chris Myers and Jeff Hammond.
- The ESPN/ABC team: Dr. Jerry Punch, Rusty Wallace, and Andy Petree in the booth; Allen Bestwick, Dave Burns, Jamie Little, and Mike Massaro in the pits, and Brent Musburger as prerace host. Coordinating producer Neil Goldberg returns to ESPN after six years at Fox.
- TNT continues with Bill Weber as lap-by-lap announcer and Wally Dallenbach as analyst.
NBC and FX will no longer carry NASCAR. NBC's departure is probably no surprise, given that it is paying $2.8 billion for six years of Sunday night telecasts of the National Football League. Most production members will stay with TNT. Both the new NFL and old NASCAR deals will overlap in 2006, which forced some postrace coverage at NBC races on CNBC. FX is apparently getting out of the sports business entirely and is expected to concentrate on a general entertainment lineup. However, this does not deal with the emergency situation which may develop should a race be rained out and be held on Monday. (FX is in more homes than Speed, and Fox may use FX as a contigency plan in case of rain.)
[edit] NASCAR on radio
Currently, three separate networks cover NASCAR races on radio:
- Motor Racing Network: Founded by Ken Squier and Bill France, Jr. in 1971, it covers all NEXTEL Cup and Busch series races at tracks owned by ISC, all such races at tracks owned by other track promoters (with one exception, see below), as well as all Craftsman Truck Series races and all exhibition races (All-Star Challenge, Duel, and Budweiser Shootout).
- Performance Racing Network: Covers all Cup and Busch races at tracks owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc.
- Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network: Covers the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, with the same announcers and production staff that covers the Indianapolis 500.
All races are currently heard on XM Satellite Radio channel 144 across the continental United States, and all three networks also have affiliation deals with hundreds of local radio stations. Many stations sign with more than one of these networks to ensure coverage of the entire season.
As of 2007, the national satellite radio rights will move to Sirius Satellite Radio from XM. Sirius plans to add a weekly program to be co-hosted by TV pit reporter Matt Yocum and 2002 and 2005 Cup champion Tony Stewart.
