Television coverage of NASCAR events.

[Jeff OTMG]

I want to gripe some more. I was watching the Busch race last Saturday and it was interupted by rain. Fine. The problem was that then they started showing figure skating. I could not sit through hours of that to find out when the race was going to continue and missed the end, which was apparently aired on ESPN. I finally caught a replay on Sunday AM of the end of the race. Sunday I had to go to work and missed the Winston Cup Race, possibly the best finish we will see this year. I searched for when it would be rebroadcast, 2AM Wed and 3AM Fri (the Fri version was edited) both on ESPN. It appears to me that NASCAR is selling out the fans by departing from TNN. TNN will replay the same Winston Cup event later that evening and at a few reasonalble hours during the week so everyone can watch it. A true committment to the sport. ABC is a total sell out as far as I am concerned, if a race does not run when they have it schedule, screw the fan, they have sitcoms to air. I do not have a problem with their position as I am sure that sitcoms bring in more money, but they should opt out of broadcasting NASCAR. ESPN is much more concerned with basketball, baseball, football, hockey, tennis, golf, and 8 showings a day of Sportscenter than they are with NASCAR. Again, that is fine, but I do not feel that they should handle NASCAR since it is obviously not important to them. Neither ABC nor ESPN have any committment to the sport of NASCAR, they are only interested in what it brings in during the scheduled time slot. If a Sunday race is rained out on TNN, they would be sure to have it live on Monday. Would ABC interupt soap operas for a race? Would ESPN prempt a baseball game? I don't think so. If you feel the same, please let NASCAR public relations know.

[Joe Fan]

Jeff, I am just glad I have cable. You couldn't enjoy the sport if you could only watch races on the major networks. ABC has always been watch it live then see it later on ESPN or ESPN2. All the major networks usually will stick to regular programming on their tight schedules if the race runs to far over or is delayed. This is one of the things I don't like about Fox and NBC getting NASCAR's TV package. Moving more races to network stations will create these kind of problems. I expect that will won't get full field run downs after the race or get to see victory celebration after a race quite a bit more if the race ia aired on NBC or FOX and runs late. This is where the cable stations would hang in there because the race brings much better ratings than what would follow in the next time slot.

What I do is tape the race if I can't watch it live to prevent having to wait to see a race. As far as the Busch race, I missed the end too because I figured that they would run it after the WC race the next day since it was so late.

[Jeff OTMG]

I want my TNN!!!!!!!!

[RainMan]

ESPN was the best thing to ever happen to NASCAR, and they, along with ABC were always willing to run over time to cover a whole race. However, their loyalty to NASCAR was rewarded by being shafted in the new TV deal. So, although I wish they had done some more interviews after the Atlanta race, I cannot blame them for cutting away. They owe NASCAR nothing more than they have already given them. And ESPN stayed at Darlington for 45 minutes after the race to cover it, so I don't see how you can legitimately claim that they don't care about the sport. And ESPN usually re-airs every race that it or ABC shows, as they have several times with both Darlington races from this week, but the week after Atlanta was a busy week for them with College basketball that they were committed to showing, so they simply couldn't fit it intot he schedule. Perhaps you should purchase a VCR to tape races from now on. I guarantee that you will be much less happy with next year's coverage. I will miss TNN as well, but I will miss ESPN most of all.