Commercials are a must.
No one with a lick of common sense is disputing that aspect of marketing the sport. Commercials are necessary to appease the
sponsors who truly support the sport. Nor am I suggesting commercials have no place in the coverage, because they really do.
I hardly think fans want to end up with pay television coverage, like going to the movies for a race, which even today shows
commercials during previews. Still, nearly everyone pays for cable television so we’re already paying for television
anyhow. Anything more would be just double and triple charging. That would most likely reduce fans viewing too. So, doing
without commercials and charging for television isn’t really a viable solution either in my opinion.
One solution is actually
two-fold. The first part is to have more commercials during the pre-race show (instead of commentator amusement antics) and
then spread the commercials out throughout the race at no more than two or three at a time (60-90 seconds max interruptions).
Limit their appearance to once every 15 minutes so that there’s only a maximum of 8-12 commercials in an hour. Let the
commentators do the job they’re actually hired to do: comment on the race – the WHOLE race or as much as possible
that can be covered between the commercials. Race fans could care less about “personality plus” in the booth or
the ‘Hollywood Hotel’. Let the personality show in the knowledge and observations made reading the race for the
fans. Then, make the commercials subject to the race so that if a yellow occurs, the race will cut into the commercial to
resume coverage immediately and resume the commercial once the coverage has been re-established. Mega yellow laps are perfect
timing for a few commercials! The Picture in a picture is okay but little pictures barely make the race worthy of watching.
Stop throwing commercials in the last 20 laps of the race when hell’s fixing to break loose so fans come back to yellow
after yellow.
The second part is that all sponsors
could have commercials and all the drivers would be represented every race with repeat commercials limited to once an hour
instead of repeatedly. Granted, Michael Waltrip makes some of the best and most hilarious commercials with NAPA but after
one race, most fans can quote his commercials out of sheer redundancy! And undoubtedly every Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan only wants
him to grace their TV but there are 41 other drivers out there with at least that many sponsors to please who won’t
be in the front of the race for camera time. Spread the wealth and exposure and get the rest of the drivers’ faces out
there with their sponsors. Have teams utilize more of the multi-team sponsorship commercials such as Dale Earnhardt Inc started
when they included Waltrip and Earnhardt Jr. in the same commercials for NAPA.
This would put variety into the commercials so fans might look forward to seeing who’s coming out with what next, similar
to the ever-popular Super Bowl commercials. If sold right, sponsors would pay top dollars for prime time commercials with
guaranteed exposure. Marketing works when it’s creatively sold. Sponsors are happy to make the commercials if they’ll
be played. If the commercials are limited so fans don’t get sick of them, there’s more to show for everyone. Then
when they show every week, fans won’t groan from seeing it again because they won’t have watched it for the umpteenth
time the week before! Fans would look forward to new commercials every week and by seasons’ end, every sponsor, driver
and team could be fully exposed! What a win-win for all involved!
