Now on to NBC … GIVE
ME A (Commercial) BREAK
The television coverage this
season has come under fire from a lot of people including me. And for a change this time the problem is not the commentary.
The problem is NBC and the commercials or lack of race coverage.
NBC is not going to be showing
NASCAR next season so they are taking out on the fans now as they are draining all the money they can out of the NASCAR cash
cow before its move back to ESPN.
The number of commercial breaks
I counted in the first 31 laps Sunday was simply ridiculous. They had 4 green flag commercial breaks at about 3 minutes each
during those 31 laps. That breaks down to about seven laps of racing and 24 laps of commercials… to me this is just
unacceptable as there must be a better way. But when you don’t have to cover a sport the next season I guess you can
get away with murder and not worry about the consequences.
With NASCAR coming back ESPN
in 2007 one can only hope that they have been taking notes and seeing that ratings steadily dropping... one of the major reasons
for this could be because of the lack of actual racing coverage.
On the plus side the joys of
modern technology allow fans to partake in both sporting events at the same time with out missing any of the action.
DVR (Digital Video Recorder)
have allowed fans to watch a television show and sporting event at any time. It allows for recording and fast-forwards through
the commercials of live events like NASCAR and NFL.
This could be another reason
for the lower rating, people are recording the races and watching them on their own time, not the time mandated by the network
and without the overload of commercials.
A simple concept that just
may work to bring ratings and fans back could be to CUT the commercials. People are tired of commercials interrupted by the
race.
Cars are sponsored for a reason
to drive up advertising revenues and bring attention to the corporation or a product… there are 43 primary sponsors
on the track and then everything on the screen is sponsored do we really need commercials?
One last thing, Good Riddance NBC, I wish you well in other sports; NASCAR was not your cup of tea.
Questions, Comments;
Email Joe
The views and opinions in this article are that of the writer and not necessarily that of SCR
2006 StockCar Review.
