It was actually watchable. That’s the statement that kept running through my head during NBC’s coverage of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Pocono Raceway. The commentary was conversational, the reporters actually followed up on driver interviews after incidents on the track and they finally got a few interesting angles of incidents during the race.
Kyle Busch trying to chase down Joey Logano to win his fourth race of the season.Mandatory Credit: Matthew O
With that being said, it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine. In fact, it seems like NBC was determined to shove the Kyle Busch comeback story down our throats for the duration of the 400 mile race. That wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, if NBC actually told both sides of the story, but they were only interested in the side that showed Kyle Busch in the best light.
For example, the announcers oohed and ahhed multiple times about Kyle Busch cracking The Top-30 in the points standings, but remained quiet about the Joe Gibbs Racing driver when he was in the back of the pack or struggling. The problem was made worse when the broadcasting booth abandoned all other storylines and practically rooted Kyle Busch on at the end of the race.
Of course that blew up in their faces when Busch ran out of gas on the final lap of the race and handed over the lead to Matt Kenseth, but of course the announcers continued to follow Kyle Busch’s limping car all the way to the finish line. Not only that, they actually started discussing how the finish put Rowdy only 13 points out of 30th place.
To be fair, Busch gaining points on 30th place in the standings his something all Kyle Busch fans should be proud of, but what about the fact that he missed his chance at making history? He could have been the first driver in eight years to win four races in row, but fell just short of the mark in the closing seconds of the race!
Unfortunately, that’s where the biased comes in with the Kyle Busch story. NBC is willing to acknowledge the good, but not the bad. Sure, they acknowledged that he didn’t win Sunday’s race, but quickly defended him by talking about how things played out in his favor for the big picture. That would have been fine if they would have covered him falling short of history also.
The race wasn’t the only place where Busch was sheltered from criticism, the pre-race show announcers seemed to not want to talk negatively about Busch as well. The announce team had ample chance to talk about Busch’s burnout on the bricks last week, but they choose to just act like that event never happened. They could have mentioned it in some sort of debate type format, but they just seemed too scared to throw any criticism his way.
Busch wasn’t the only one exempt from criticism, Martin Truex Jr got a free pass during Sunday’s race coverage as well. I can understand that NBC would want to build Truex up as an underdog contender for the day’s race and even The Chase, but not to the point where they fail to mention that his win was due to a rain delay. That’s just misleading the audience, especially new fans who wouldn’t know otherwise.
Martin Truex jr trying to get his second win of the year. Mandatory Credit: Matthew O
It’s all about balance and NBC just needs to find that perfect balance. They can’t keep relying on Kyle Busch for ratings, no matter how dominant he is. Relying on something just breeds complacency and that might help the ratings in the short run, but not in the long run. To work in the long run, NASCAR needs multiple plans at work.
Not only that, they need to think about what they say before they say it. For example, Kyle Petty made a comment that could be considered very detrimental to the sport of auto racing. What was that comment you may ask? Well in case you missed it, Petty talked about Kyle Busch’s crew chief telling him over the radio to stop trying to chase down Joey Logano during the final laps of the race to conserve fuel.
While fans might not view this as something that would be detrimental to the sport, it really is in a way. In fact, I’ve had friends that watched the sport of auto racing for the first time and asked me why a driver would back off just to conserve fuel. Don’t they want to win, they would ask me?
Sure, you and I understand that fuel strategy is a huge and crucial part of racing, fans that are new to the sport don’t. When they hear a crew chief say something like, back off, they immediately think that this means the driver is giving up their chance to win this race. They have no idea what the bigger picture is.
NASCAR and NBC should really watch what they say when it comes to moments like this, especially with so many new fans tuning in to watch the races on NBC and NBCSN. Or they could at least do a better job of explaining the situation to new fans of the sport. I know this seems like a nitpick, but again, it is a big part of why some people don’t understand or like NASCAR.
All and all, NBC put on a great race. The announcing was actual conversational, the storylines were actually followed up on and the commercials weren’t as overbearing as before. NBC might have a few things to work on here and there, but they are definitely making some strides so far.