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It was a daily cry near the end of the 2007 season to hear NASCAR fans heartily complain about the lack of quality television coverage they were getting of their favorite sport.FOX had some gaffes, TNT was an interesting dot on the map and ESPN's triumphant return blew up quicker than a Dale Earnhardt Jr. DEI motor. There were horrible camera angles, bad commentators, pointless graphics & illustrations and completely lost knack at telling a compelling story for every fan watching the race.
Sure, if you were a Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon fan, you had plenty of driver coverage down the stretch. The problem, though, was that 41 other cars started the race and a good majority of those never even saw the beam of a camera during the 3 to 4 hour events.
ESPN has already announced plenty of changes -- including the removal of Rusty Wallace as a permanent fixture in the broadcast booth. TNT has said they are coming back at the July race in Daytona with the "Wide Open" coverage that featured fewer commercial breaks. FOX is staying with their tried and true team in the broadcast booth that has stayed the same since 2001.
Will that be enough? I'd like to think so.
TNT is definitely pioneering a concept that could potentially be the new way to watch NASCAR on television. Featuring just a handful of all-out local commercial breaks per race and in-race ads while the cars are still visible on-screen really is a nice break from the all-too-common five minutes of racing per commercial break format that seems to be the norm.
ESPN's revamped hosting line-up is a stride in the right direction, but a focus on telling stories for all of the fans watching the race and treating NASCAR events as if there are more than stick-and-ball sport viewers tuning in is a necessity. Fans are flat tired of hearing the same explanation each week about the handling of a car that they could tell another person in their sleep.
Viewers took to a practice of muting their broadcasts on TV in favor of the audio delivered by the radio broadcasts of both MRN and PRN in 2007 because, frankly, guys like Barney Hall and Doug Rice could tell a much more exciting race to viewers.
That's got to change in 2008, otherwise the downward trend of viewership will continually grow larger.
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