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.