IMSA USCC in 2016 and 2017

[Coach Ep]

Screamer in for Varsha and Bell is not an improvement - but all are far off Dorsey and Jeremy Dale anyway.

Good that they kept Till.

[Deleted]

Haven't they still had Fish or whomever doing some "presentations" or whatever for those WEC broadcasts (I think anyway)

It's probably imago thing to have your on people there

In any case, they'll still need to bring their own staff for Le Mans because there's no universal comms service for that (RLM audio leasing isn't suitable as they cannot commit exclusively to FOX pacing - also it gets dryyyyy with Truswell statics)

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

Good that they kept Till.

Ya he has always been solid and overseen

[supermario21]

Looks like, sadly, that Speedvision 2001 will go down in history as the apex of American endurance racing viewing. Heck Speedvision back then was awesome for pretty much everything. Fortunately NBCSN and CBSSN have picked up some of the slack, but I digress...

Poor Bob, couldn't go to NBC for F1 because he was still under contract with FOX and now this happens. Can you blame him for being disengaged at times? He's calling just about everything from a studio nowadays, he's been and covered every race on site for decades. It has to be hard for him, seeing something that he really helped build up just fall apart in his face basically. It was before my time, but many people in America grew up with him and Hobbs as the voice of non-NASCAR racing, be it F1 or endurance.

Before they had gotten taken down on YouTube, there were some great videos of almost the entire broadcasts of LM 98, 99, and some of 00 and 01. Those teams were loaded, and were onsite. Varsha, Creamer, Rick Benjamin handling PBP. Analysts were pretty much everyone under the sun; Sam Posey, Dorsey, Daly, Hobbs, Bell, Danny Sullivan, Allan McNish even joined the team for a bit in 01 while he was testing for Toyota F1...Great pit reporters with Fish, Dave Burns who went on to NASCAR, Till, Andrew Marriott...

Fox's commitment to LM has steadily gotten less and less with regard to personnel. After 08, only the pit-reporters stayed for the rest and the others went back to Charlotte to call the race in a studio. As of last year, the play-by-play announcers don't even go to LM for raceweek like they used to. The coverage definitely has suffered as a result even though they all still do a great job IMO considering the circumstances (with the exception of Scott Pruett lol).

The manufacturers should be frustrated, they need wide internet access or a steady TV broadcast. Speedvision broadcasting the full races really did make a difference. Heck I remember my dad having back surgery and while he was confined to the couch recovering caught on to the 2000 LM24...It's been a staple ever since.

FOX Sports as a whole is really struggling, they've had to slash staff as they've gained more broadcast rights. ESPN is sort of undergoing the same problems now but FOX has really taken a hit. ESPN has ratings to fall back on, FS1/2 do not have the ratings nor the distribution.

IMSA has been practically unwatchable for me mainly because of the product, but these broadcasting changes won't make it any easier to watch.

[Deleted]

Didn't they fire Pruett for last year's race? I guess that was the one good thing, as he was almost Carlton Kirby frustrating...

[supermario21]

Yeah fortunately Pruett was not on the broadcast the last year or so.

[rich07]

They got rid of Varsha? **** this!

So glad they didn't cut Brian Till, I was reading through this on Racer expecting him to be cut or replaced but thankfully no.

Now if they meddle with Hindy and co there's going to a lot of very angry people and not just fans either.

Poor Varsha where to for him now?

[BullMan]

This is what we have to look forward to on the TV side now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06n6...el=TheRaceBird

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by rich07

They got rid of Varsha? **** this!

So glad they didn't cut Brian Till, I was reading through this on Racer expecting him to be cut or replaced but thankfully no.

Now if they meddle with Hindy and co there's going to a lot of very angry people and not just fans either.

Poor Varsha where to for him now?

They just brought Hindy back, and know that it was a GOOD decision.

Never was a fan of Varsha doing IMSA. Keeping Till is a good move though.

Hopefully they are trimming the production side to secure a better broadcast package, no FS2 and more consistency on where a single event will be aired (along with streaming to bolster it).






L.P.

[Deleted]

Varsha sounded shocked on Racer's quotes.

The IMSA Rep defence speeches are laughable.

And indeed all-Charlotte penny saving after Beach

They are keeping Fish though

[chernaudi]

At this stage, I'm willing to bet that FS' crew will have little to do with the LM24 broadcast, and it'll be like the other WEC broadcasts with Radio Le Mans providing primary commentary and a FS commentator providing commentary bumpers going into and coming back from commercial.

I'm surprised that IMSA just didn't hand primary commentary responsibility for FS' broadcast to RLM. RLM already provide IMSA broadcast commentary on IMSA's stream and as I mentioned, the WEC broadcasts are already set up much the same way.

IMO, this is just penny pinching by Fox and IMSA. And of course, I'm largely of the opinion that penny pinching isn't the way to make a good product in motorsports.

[Deleted]

Varsha is still on FOX payroll, just fired from this series. And he will do Le Mans, at least he thinks he does (per his twitter) which probably confirms they still have usual full Charlotte gang for that + send their pit reporter(s) to France

Someone also asked him if he could join RLM for Daytona, and he replied "I don't see how". Hmm... they'd likely take him anyday (Hindy's a fan so he'd prob pay him himself :P) so guess Bob just isn't interested. Oh well he has been bored with this series for while after all...

Btw Motors TV always had the most brilliantly lazy way to pull off rent-broadcast. They just aired the direct American TV feed with all their own comms (must be assuring for viewer to hear "Welcome to SPEED/FOX/ESPN/ABC/whatever presentation of...") and all the ad breaks (filled with silence and static cams), with nothing done to make it look like their own broadcast. Oh well, they did slap their Motors TV logo there on top of the signal broadcaster's one, but so incompetently that you could still recognize the real station from behind good times

[BullMan]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

At this stage, I'm willing to bet that FS' crew will have little to do with the LM24 broadcast, and it'll be like the other WEC broadcasts with Radio Le Mans providing primary commentary and a FS commentator providing commentary bumpers going into and coming back from commercial.

I'm surprised that IMSA just didn't hand primary commentary responsibility for FS' broadcast to RLM. RLM already provide IMSA broadcast commentary on IMSA's stream and as I mentioned, the WEC broadcasts are already set up much the same way.

IMO, this is just penny pinching by Fox and IMSA. And of course, I'm largely of the opinion that penny pinching isn't the way to make a good product in motorsports.

They hand comms control to RLM and then they have to do the lead in-out to every commercial break even though the stream never goes to break. It would hurt RLM's product, and I'm glad they aren't doing that.

[Deleted]

Truswell's nerdy statistics would also bore mainstream TV audiences to tears

(yes, I know this is extremely unpopular opinion, but I really don't think that kind of trivial could pass on television, not on constant and relentless 24 hour roll anyways)

[wdave0]

They just need people who can make a FCY sound exciting - Creamer isn't bad at that, Dorsey was terrible at it so he was first to go. They need NASCAR or INDY car broadcast experience - how to call a sow's ear a silk purse with a straight face.

[Deleted]

Brian Till was good at coming up with random chitchat, much better than Varsha who in these circles often had less to say than his so called analysts. Even when he did came up with something it was often completely irrelevant. So I'm not sure why they're wasting Brian in the pits instead of where he belongs

But they'll prob have to throw him in there regardless for Daytona since FOX has no B-Team right now with all the layouts, you know A is Screamer+Fish, B would likely have to be Brian and, I don't know, Tommy Kendall or something. Finally they'll drag Andrew Merriot out of Bingo for another temporary pit boy assignment and call it a day, voila 5000 dollars saved for Atherton's and Bennett's lobster dinner.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by BullMan

They will also probably not even come to the track after Daytona and call the races from Charlotte like they did with F1.

Fox tried this with a few college football games this year and it was an EPIC failure! Luckily it will be on FS2 and no one will see it so it should save the sport some additional criticism.

[Deleted]

At least Dorsey is back.

No not on booth but in the Highway to Retirement DP. Again.

What has he done for the past year? Wondering where the mustache went along the years?

[Coach Ep]

Dorsey joined the Dark Side as PWC's new race director in August last year (or at least the announcement was made at that time, http://www.motorsport.com/pwc/news/d...race-director/ )

And I guess he consulted Nigel Mansell on how to get rid of some facial hair...!

[Deleted]

But wasn't Till also race director there (IDK don't follow WC at all anymore). What's up with FOX commentators getting that gig

[Coach Ep]

Driving steward, but yes, you were close.

It's all about who you know in the racing world (and who knows you!) and as former racers both Dorsey and Till tick that box.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

IMO, this is just penny pinching by Fox and IMSA. And of course, I'm largely of the opinion that penny pinching isn't the way to make a good product in motorsports.

Agreed. IMSA's problems are far bigger than the line up of FOX's commentating and production team. It's a downward spiral and as it's not hard to imagine the ratings not increasing drastically with no major improvements lined up for better racing, a pull out from some manufacturers (as they no longer are willing to cough up the required marketing fees) might be next, soon to be followed by the rest of them. And then what Nascar? Selling the series as it becomes more and more a money loser? Or run it into the ground in order to make it harder (than it already is) for anyone to come up with something new....?

[Akrapovic]

As long as RLM continue to cover the international stream. Cannot stand the American style broadcasts. TBH, I think the American TV Coverage should just be the RLM stream. A lot less fluff and rubbish and a lot more racing.

"Lets cut away to tell you a story about the race you're watching, and then advertise a product on the race you're watching, and then maybe a heart warming tail about the race you're watching."

Can't watch the race for all the crap in the way.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Chiana

At least Dorsey is back.

No not on booth but in the Highway to Retirement DP. Again.

What has he done for the past year? Wondering where the mustache went along the years?

You're responding like this is a bad thing or something.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

As long as RLM continue to cover the international stream. Cannot stand the American style broadcasts. TBH, I think the American TV Coverage should just be the RLM stream. A lot less fluff and rubbish and a lot more racing.

"Lets cut away to tell you a story about the race you're watching, and then advertise a product on the race you're watching, and then maybe a heart warming tail about the race you're watching."

Can't watch the race for all the crap in the way.

You forgot that after the first story about Scott Pruett's preparations it's time for 3 minute commercials, then 30 second "still under caution here at Daytona with 22 hours to go, we'll be back" bumper, 3 minutes on commercials, the Michelin tech tip, then the heartwarming story, 3 minutes of commercials, bumper with "when we come back we go green", 3 minutes on commercials, 5 MINUTES ON RACING, 3 minutes commercials, bumper, 5 minute NASCAR practice update from wherever, 3 minutes on commercials, 1 minute on racing, story about Taylor brothers social media, 2 minutes of racing, Corvette infomercial, "we're under caution here at Daytona", 3 minutes commercials, bumper, etc...

You couldn't really fit RLM audio feed for that messy jungle...

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Matt

You're responding like this is a bad thing or something.

It's not

Dorsey is cool dude. In a way