The ABCs of ruining ... NASCAR?

Terrible announcing. Manufactured drama. Needless, nonsensical graphics and camera angles. Promoting other events at the expense of the event at hand. Plummeting ratings.

Sound familiar?

This is not the NBA on ABC. Instead, these are the criticisms leveled at NASCAR on ABC, which has quickly become hated by NASCAR nation. NASCAR on ABC has been so criticized that even DirecTV is sponsoring a contest where fans answer the question: “The moment when ESPN/ABC made me wish I had DirecTV’s NASCAR HotPass was when…”

From Suzy Kolber and Brad Daugherty to the ramblings of Rusty Wallace, there is not much about ESPN/ABC NASCAR telecasts that fans like. Here is a roundup of some of the complaints from the NASCAR blogosphere.

John Daly, The Daly Planet, “ESPN Needs To Admit NASCAR Problems“

Once again, ESPN confirmed to sports fans that this “new ESPN approach” to all types of sports involves promoting the stars of the sport and trying to manufacture drama where, in reality, there is none. At seemingly the most critical times in live sports coverage, ESPN seems to step-out of the moment for the sake of controlling the action and creating their own reality. …

Why all the hype? Why all the phony bells and whistles when what all of us came here to see is the race?

We came to see NASCAR racing before ESPN “re-arrived,” and we also watch this sport when ESPN is not broadcasting it. Fans are here to focus on the race, not the fact ESPN is covering it. That message has fallen on deaf ears. …

ESPN on Sunday got in all of their ABC commercials, all of their ESPN/ABC promos, all of their sponsored features, and all of their billboards for the various products. They showed us the Infield Studio, the SportsCenter updates, the Tech Center, and even the live “helmet cam” on a pit crew member.

What they did not show us was the race. What they did not follow-up were the stories. What they confirmed was that content is secondary and ESPN’s network agenda is primary.

Kurt Smith, That’s Racin, “‘We would like to thank all of our loyal fans’“

I think we can all agree that ABC/ESPN has set the bar of NASCAR broadcasting to a new low, and that took some doing. … [I]t?s obvious there is too much non-racing stuff going on.

Even Dr. Jerry Punch is drawing criticism, and he is fairly competent at play-by-play. Petree isn?t bad in the booth, and Rusty has improved a little bit. I searched for some Rusties this week and other than one ?clean traffic,? he didn?t give me anything to work with. But he still isn?t Vin Scully. Maybe they could replace him with Dennis Miller. …

The only explanation for NASCAR allowing this to continue is that they may be planning to bring pay-per-view to the table and they are deliberately making the broadcasts so unbearable that people will pay. Not saying that?s happening, but there isn?t any logical explanation for NASCAR allowing their ratings to continue to sink like they are.

digitalbush.com, “ESPN/ABC NASCAR Coverage Sucks“

The announcers that ESPN have managed to line up are just terrible. Some of them are boring, some of them are uneducated about the sport, and some are both. Combined they just stink up the airwaves. The network itself goes to commercial way too often, and won?t come back from commercials for important stuff like the other (better) networks.

Their technical segments are just lame. ?Draft Track?? Give me a break. Also, the next time a motor lets go and they pan to that same animation of the valve breaking off, I?m seriously going to throw my remote through the TV. Usually, they?ve managed to go to this graphic before the car is even back in the pits. It?s okay to speculate what?s happened and say something like ?Maybe he dropped a valve? or ?The bottom end could have let go? before you really know. The animations are totally unnecessary until you?ve received some sort of confirmation about what actually happened.

tallglassofmilk, The Fanhouse, “Fans: NASCAR on ESPN on ABC Sucks“

And how about their on-air talent? Do you just want Rusty Wallace to can it, or what? I cannot be the only one bugged by his uncanny ability to know what is going through every driver’s mind at any given moment on the track. Or maybe it’s his mastery of the obvious that rubs me the wrong way, like yesterday when Dale Earnhardt Jr. passed teammate Martin Truex Jr. and Rusty said something like “It just goes to show ya how much Junior wants to win this race.” How profound. Imagine that …a driver wanting to win a race.

Don’t even get me started on the “fans’ reporter,” Brad Daugherty, or the obligatory female presence of Suzie Kolber.

gwhicks, Tech for the Non-Techie, “ESPN And ABC Screw The NASCAR Fans Again!“

ESPN had a tremendous opportunity to show all of their NASCAR fans that they care? but apparently they don?t. This past Sunday, the Nascar Nextel Cup Chase race held at Martinsville, Virginia was preempted for west coast viewers by the wildfires that began raging near Malibu. While I can understand the importance of these events, and my thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected, the bottom line is that it is a fairly small group of people that were directly involved. Coverage of the race could have been moved to any of the NUMEROUS other stations that ESPN owns and most of the time have nothing broadcast on them. This small and very simple gesture from them would have done more in a good sense and done much to recover their severely tarnished reputation from all of their other broadcasting fiasco?s. …

My point is mainly that the fans wanting to watch the race FAR outnumbered those that were being affected by the fires. I also didn?t notice any of the football games being preempted (FOX had football going all day). So there were plenty of sources to get the fire information without having to tie up the ABC/ESPN west coast feeds for 5+ hours.

Tags: Roundup