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ROBERTS: The Dynamics Of NASCAR TV
Although football and racing are two entirely different beasts, it’s natural to compare NASCAR TV to the “stick-and-ball” sports broadcasts...
John Roberts  |  Posted January 23, 2009   Charlotte, NC
John Roberts is the host of NASCAR RaceDay, NASCAR Victory Lane and NASCAR Smarts on SPEED. (Photo: SPEED)
John Roberts on SPEEDtv.com - The Online Motorsports Authority (Image: SPEED)

While we eagerly await next week’s Super Bowl and the following week’s pilgrimage to Daytona International Speedway, the two events and sports couldn’t be much different on paper.

But peer a bit beyond the steering wheel and pigskin and you’ll spot some glaring similarities. However, the problem lies with the inequities by which the two sports’ television broadcasts are measured.

Although football and racing are two entirely different beasts, it’s natural to compare NASCAR TV to the “stick-and-ball” sports broadcasts. After all, they both fall into the category of professional sports on TV. The differences between a motorsports broadcast and a ball game broadcast are many, and you can credit that to the nature of the NASCAR world.

The average life expectancy of an NFL career is only a few years, and the natural progression is often to the TV booth when the body wears out, so that league basically spits out qualified analysts and commentators every year. Not so in the NASCAR world. Drivers sometimes hang around into their 50s and crew chiefs often even longer than that. Plus, the money paid to a “TV guy” pales in comparison to a racer’s salary. When you consider the financial aspect of driving versus commentating, NASCAR fans are fortunate to have the type of knowledgeable and qualified analysts we have on the air.

When a driver or crew chief finally steps out of the NASCAR garage, he sometimes steps into the television booth, as do his football counterparts. A complaint we often read on the World Wide Web is that all of these NASCAR analysts have financial interests in some aspect of what they are discussing on the air, and therefore, cannot offer an unbiased assessment of what’s happening on or off the race track. However, it really can be argued that the opposite is true. The complexities and inner-workings of the racing world are best explained by those closest to the sport itself and those who have either turned the wheel, turned the wrench or paid the salaries of those who have.

Many bloggers have opined that guys like Ray Evernham, Brad Daugherty, Jeff Hammond and others are somehow biased announcers because of their ownership role but I couldn’t disagree more. In fact, these professionals at times have gone out of their way to be unbiased. Naturally, there are times when they cannot discuss certain aspects of their businesses on the air and for that, they owe us no explanation.


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