Kyle Busch returning to victory lane at Kentucky. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? That is the question NASCAR has to be asking themselves after Saturday’s Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Motor Speedway. The second Sprint Cup race on the Sprint Cup schedule had everything. Drama, intense racing and even an exciting finish to the race, but did they have a big enough audience to witness all the action?
While the NBCSN Wikipedia page touts that the network is available in over 81,578,000 homes across The United States, the page also states that almost all of the providers that carry the channel have it listed very high up. This was bound to create some confusion for fans thinking that Saturday’s race would be on the main channel of NBC.
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Honestly, by time fans called their cable providers or found the channel themselves, the race was probably half way over. That’s not a good thing if you want to introduce a new audience to NASCAR racing. In fact, this move should not only alienate news audiences that might be giving NASCAR a chance for the first time, but their diehard fans that watch weekly as well.
For those that came late to the party, you missed multiple pit road mishaps, Danica and Dale Jr dueling on pit road after an accident, Brad Keselowski having more highs and lows then an airline pilot and underdog Kyle Busch battle it out with Joey Logano in the closing laps for the win. If anything, this was one of the better 1.5 mile races of the season.
With NASCAR being a sport that has been plagued negative attention over rain delays, its southern heritage and its validity as sport, the worst thing NBC could have done was pawn Saturday nights race off on its secondary network, especially with all the action that took place in Sparta, Kentucky on Saturday evening.
The ten-year deal between NASCAR and NBC should have been a turning point for NASCAR broadcasting. It should have helped the sport develop a larger audience, but instead NBC decided to only broadcast seven Sprint Cup races on the main NBC channel this season. The seven races that will be included on the main channel will be Daytona, Darlington, Richmond, Charlotte, Kansas, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead.
Kyle Busch taking a bow after a big win at Kentucky Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
While NBC broadcasting the final three races of The Sprint Cup Chase is a positive aspect of the deal with NBC, the decision to not broadcast races like Talladega, Martinsville and Dover are jaw dropping to say the least. This would have been a great chance to show new fans the kind of beating and banging racing that this sport was built upon, but NBC just doesn’t seem to be looking at the big picture with things like that.
With that being said, NBC can’t afford to let something like this happen again. If anything, NBC needs to take a hard look at their broadcast schedule for next season and make better decisions about what races should make it onto the main channel and which ones are better off on the sister network. In the meantime, NBC are just going to have to deal with angry fans, declining viewership and livid sponsors as well.
This isn’t to say that NBC is doing everything wrong with their coverage of The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. In fact, a lot of the pre-race coverage is very interesting and the hosts always seem to make the extra effort to teach new fans that are just coming into the sport. They also have a post-race show that is far and beyond anything that Fox could ever do.
Although there some positives of the coverage, there are a lot of other negatives of The NBC broadcast as well. The camera angles are bizarrely different from that of Fox Sports and just seem to lack the color and interesting angles that other sport broadcasts feature. The race announcing seems like a jumbled mess at times and The NBC broadcast team have missed more cues then I can even begin to count.
Fortunately for NBC and race fans, this is a learning experience. Things aren’t going to go right the first time. These broadcasters and producers just need time to get things on track and give fans the kind of broadcast they deserve. Sure, it might be hard to watch at points, but when NBC does get it right, it will probably be some of the best TV that fans have seen in years.