SubscribeESPN/ABC NASCAR Coverage Sucks
Comments(36) I finally got around to this. This has been building up in my mind, and it's time to vent a little. We used to debate back and forth about which network had better coverage, Fox or NBC. Now that ESPN has taken this over, either of the other two options would suit me just fine.
The announcers that ESPN have managed to line up are just terrible. Some of them are boring, some of them are uneducated about the sport, and some are both. Combined they just stink up the airwaves. The network itself goes to commercial way too often, and won't come back from commercials for important stuff like the other (better) networks.
Their technical segments are just lame. "Draft Track"? Give me a break. Also, the next time a motor lets go and they pan to that same animation of the valve breaking off, I'm seriously going to throw my remote through the TV. Usually, they've managed to go to this graphic before the car is even back in the pits. It's okay to speculate what's happened and say something like "Maybe he dropped a valve" or "The bottom end could have let go" before you really know. The animations are totally unnecessary until you've received some sort of confirmation about what actually happened.
Here's my public outcry to ESPN: Please go watch some of the recent coverage from the other (better) networks. Everything they did wasn't always the best, but it was absolutely better than what you are doing now.
Boogity, Boogity, Boogity.
Great post, if you get a chance, stop-by The Daly Planet and leave a comment.
Our site is read by both the NASCAR and TV executives and has been working well at getting the message across that fans deserve better coverage of racing.
Thanks again for letting me add this post.
JD
great post john,i do think that NASCAR’s longtime fans deserve better,why would anyboby want to hear what Sozy Kolber has to say,she makes FOX’s Tino Cervasio seem smart
oh, EXACTLY !!!!!!!!!!!!!
i even have to change channels sometimes, just to not have to listen to these people. they stink !!!
i want boogity boogity back too !!!!!
I think “Draft Track” is great. It is so high tech. I think they pay some kid with magic air seeing glasses to scribble all over a screen with a marker?
boogity boogity boogity
We have just finished watching the Pheonix race and have to tell you that you may as well not bother broadcasting the race with all the back ground noise. Surely, you must have filters to eliminate the track noise so you can hear the broadcaster speak. My husbands hearing is not the greatest, however, mine is quite fine and I cannot hear what is going on.
Just to let you know. We did not have this problem when FOX was broadcasting the race.
Only 7 more years of ESPN to go! “and we’re in this for eight years. We’re already hard at work on NASCAR for next year.” -ESPN (Viewer’s Guide: H’stead) last sentence
Agree! I am a relative newcomer to NASCAR but feel like I already know as much about Rusty Wallace as his wife. Please, stick to the race! And stop with all the commercials.
BBB!!!
ESPN/ABC announcers, with the exception of pit crew announcers, are horrible! And, do I really need to watch an advertisement for Nascar while I’m watching Nascar?? I don’t think so–I’m already a fan. I feel like others, that I’m just missing out on being able to see the race because of excessive and long commercials,horrible camera shots,too many teck garage infomercials, and unnecessary motormouthing by the guys in the booth who aren’t keeping me aprised of what’s happening on the track!!! At least with Fox cameramen and announcers I felt like I watched the whole race!! What a novel idea!! ESPN/ABC, please give up your contract or go back to the drawing board for us fans who actually like to watch all the race –not just what you are prepared to show us.
The coverage of NASCAR BY espn/abc absolutley sucks! Way too many commercials, missed segments of the race,ie pit action, accidents, restarts, etc. And far too many primadonnas giving their opinion that makes race fans sound like they know nothing, all this and whinney rusty wallace to boot. god save us all
boogity, boogity, boogity
I agree even a veteran like Rusty just is awfull. I almost want to turn off the volume and watch it with MRN on the radio.
What was wrong with showing the whole season on Fox? i thought they did a perfectly fine job and i love the announcers. Espn on the other hand is just horrible. The coverage is awful, they show the stupid analysis of why a motor “might” be about to blow up 50 times, and dont even get me started on the AWFUL ESPN ANNOUNCERS!
Please oh please let Fox show the races! i want to hear more Boogity Boogity Boogity from DW. And i am gonna miss Larry Mac
Personally, I”m getting sick of Darrell Waltrip. He spends a whole race damn-near entering Denny Hamlin into sainthood…..his upbringing, his childhood, his parents beaming proudly from the pits….etc. Then, after Hamlin pulls that cheating stunt and stops on the track costing Jr the win, Waltrip becomes tight-lipped concerning his hero. When the news about Aaron Fike using heroin for over a year (a year that he was racing) came out everybody was demanding immediate stepped-up drug testing. Waltrip’s comment was “Nascar’s got a handle on it”. Yeah right. Thats just two examples of Waltrip’s BS.
I totally agree. Last year when FOX was done with the announcing, it was “ho hum” from there. When I would watch ESPN’s feeble attempt to broadcast Nascar races, it always left me with the impression they were out of their league. The chemistry that the FOX team brought always had me “plugged in”, feeling I was truly involved in the Nascar spirit. ESPN does not have the chemistry and should stick to baseball/football. Leave Nascar to people who know what they are doing. I hope someday FOX gets ALL the Nascar races, the announcing team they have is bar none the best. I could do without DW’s “boggity boggity” crap though.
This is horrible. The audio keeps cutting out and we can’t hear the race. ESPN sucks and ABC should divorce themselves from them.
I AM WATCHING ABC/ESPN COVERAGE OF THE LOWES MOTORSPEEDWAY RACE, OCT 11.
PLEASE TELL ME WHY YOU INSIST ON HAVING THE TRACK NOISE DROWN OUT YOUR COMMENTATORS.
I WISH YOU WOULD GO BACK TO FOX, AT LEAST I COULD HEAR THE ANNOUNCERS AND THE COMMENTS MADE BY THE ROVING REPORTERS. THERE IS SO MUCH BACKGROUND NOISE OF THE CARS THAT YOU CANNOT HEAR. MAYBE YOU NEED THE ANNOUNCERS IN THE HOLLYWOOD HOTEL. I DO NOT ENJOY THE CURRENT BROADCAST OF THE RACES. BRING BACK FOX OR WORK ON THE CURRENT PROBLEM.
NAScar is not a sport.
The audio cuts in and out during in car and pit reporting. It may be particular to HDTV broadcast… the audio also is not synched up properly, so it can be like watching a 1960′s Japanese monster movie at times.
A
ll that technology, and they still can’t get clear and precise audio?
I liked it when Speed Channel had the coverage.
ESPN, FOX, ABC… they all suck in one way or another.
There are too many times when no cameras are there to catch a crash or other event.
And Tim Brewer’s Cut-Away car segments suck.
Even my wife finds them waaay too dummied down.
We don’t need them to show the cut-away car to see what a tire looks like – we’ve seen them before.
Don’t show me the push button on the steering wheel, just tell me about how a kill switch works (if you still think I’m an idiot).
As soon as Fox’s NASCAR coverage ends each season, the only bearable way to watch a race is to mute the TV and turn on the radio.
To those that commented on the race noise drowning out everything, I agree 100%…….BUT, if you HAVE to listen to the TV while watching, I found a workaround. Set your TV’s audio from ‘stereo’ to ‘mono’. It gets rid of the surround sound effect of all the race noise. (Can’t say how well this will work if you actually have a surround sound system, however.) Just remember to set the audio back later. Yeah, I know, it’s a pain in the butt, but it seems to do the trick.
Please get new announcers next year who are not
Jimmy Johnson fans. These announcer are pathetic!!!
They constantly go on and on about Jimmy Johnson
even when he is not in front-is he paying them extra
money??? There are other race car drivers and even
when someone else wins-all they can talk about is
Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.
I couldn’t wait for Nascar to start again this year and hear that announcers that I love, then low and behold that races start yet you can’t hear the announcers over the background noise. What’s going on guys? If it was the ESPN announcers I wouldn’t care, but we love our FOX guys. Come on and fix this please.
I have to agree. There must be filters of some kind, as we didn’t have a problem hearing the announcers last year. As much as I like hearing the cars I would like to hear the announcers talking about what is going on too.
How I long for the glory days of ESPN. Bob Jenkins was the best announcer ever to call a nascar race. Jerry Punch was a good pit reporter but cannot stand him as lead commentator. BP and Ned Jarrett were great as well. I was at first exited about ESPN coming back but when i heard Bob Jenkins wasint gong to be on i knew it was going to suck! And it does!
If FOX has the whole season, I will actully watch the races. The only bad thing about FOX is digger.
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Isn’t there some oversight committee/forum that monitors the number and length of commercials? Not fifteen minutes into the race my wife are both saying, “another commercial?”. I couldn’t believe it. How many times are they going to show the same stupid commercial at that. So we started timing it and it was about three minutes coverage some times between commercials. Maybe the TV crew is just so lousy that it just seems like they are always in commercial. I am not a Darrel fan but at least Fox did a better job. And while I am at it. What the heck does a basketball player know about NASCAR? Maybe Mark Martin can go announce the NBA! After he wins the cup of course! Go Mark!.
This new coverage by ESPN/ABC that started at New Hampshire, Sept. 2009, is terrible. The sound of the cars is barely audible during an ongoing blither blather of inane commentary. How about a segment where they discuss what color shoes the drivers wear? Whoever is producing this is obviously not a NASCAR fan. Turn up the sound of the cars, and make the announcers shut up – at least occasionally.
Nice post.
My view is that I would prefer to have the coverage follow the race on the track. The race for positions as you move from the front of the pack to the rear… the sad part is that for some reason the networks seem to think that we need to be entertained as if we had ADD. IE lets go from this shot to this shot to this shot and make it a real close up within a matter of seconds. Pull back a bit to give perspective of the actual drama of the race car drivers and the efforts they make to achieve their results.
I do not need to see someone roll in for a pit stop during the race unless of course it is someone in the top five. I do not need to see a lug wrench to know a drivers pit crew had a problem with a pit stop. Which of course the announcer can comment on while we watch a drama of drivers on the race track. I do not need to see cut outs of the car to explain the speculation or reason why a car or driver crashed.
I’m saddened by the horrendous approach to marketing my NASCAR to which I’ve viewed since the Wide World of Sports televised it in the sixties with wider shots and the drama between drivers.
Bring back the Drama of racing through and on the track, please.
I can’t believe that abc is covering the last 10 races to the championship. They need to focus on the race and not the commercials. As a Nascar fan, all I want to see is the race and not 100+ commercials durning the race. ABC, you need to get your priorities staight and that is the consumers, and not the commercials. Get It Together ABC, and focus on the program not your pocket book. I hope that after this year ABC will no longer cover anymore nascar events, and that Speed Channel will cover all the races, Speed Channel is the best coverage and the most knowlegeable on the sport. There is no one that covers it better and there will never be any station ever to cover the nascar races as Speed Channel
I have a major complaint with abc coverage of last nights race. The sound of the engines roaring around the track is so loud that you can’t hear what the announcer’s saying. Yes it’s like being right at the racetrack (minus the smells) but if that’s their goal, then shut up and let me watch the race, I’ll figure out who wrecked later. It’s horrible when in the winner’s circle you can hear the announcer for the stands better than you can hear the interview with the winner. Horrible and annoying all at the same time. Either turn down the volume for the cars or turn up the volume for the announcers~!
I watch NASCAR in HD, on a 7.1 surround sound system. The ABC surround sound SUCKS! Give me back my FOX coverage! The FOX HD surround sound broadcast blows everyone else away. With FOX, I can actually hear the cars going from one side of my living room to the other. With FOX, I feel like I’m there, watching the race in person. ABC tries to do this, but I’m sorry to say that their efforts do not come close to the realism that FOX has achieved. After FOX has spoiled me with the best HD surround sound broadcast possible, I don’t think I will ever be happy with anything else. I also have to say that the ABC programming in my DVR’s guide has been wrong on several occations, causing me to end up with 4 hours of weather radar to watch, rather than the weekend’s race. Argh! This never happened with FOX. As far as the announcers go, I find myself ignoring them or even turning the volume down and listening to something else because they just aren’t very interresting. I want my FOX NASCAR back! As a fan/consumer, I would love to see NASCAR on FOX all year long. Their coverage is so much more superior than this ABC/ESPN junk. (sorry…)
I agree, the coverage sucks! Dumb bitch(why they have them is beyond me) said, “500 laps, 500 miles!” – at Bristol!!!! Do the math dumb ass or go sell Avon!
Aug 27 Bristol race is pre-empted by Irene on ABC and ESPN is airing a high school footbal game. NASCAR wake up and put the races on SPEED. ABC & ESPN suck, both delay coverage and cut away, announcers have no idea what they are talking about and the commercials every 10 minutes are icing on th cake
Why can’t all the nascar announcers just shutup and bring the race. Why do we need them all keep running the mouths for hours and then finally start the race. I just want to see the race and do not care all about the car setups, that doesn’t mean nothing to me. Get rid all the waltrips & wallace’s. Lets get the race going, when they say they are coming on at 12pm central time, the drivers should be in the cars ready to go. Again, all nacar announcers need to go bye bye