NBC ends its broadcast partnership with NASCAR, hurt by complaints about network
Quote selected text Published November 20th, 2006 in NASCAR News
NBC ended its six-year NASCAR contract with last night’s Ford 400. Sam Flood, the NBC sports producer whose work this year fashioned the highest-rated Daytona 500 in history, and director Mike Wells, have been hurt by complaints about the network’s work this season.
“We put on the best show we can every week, and we’re really proud of what we’ve done,” Flood said “This is our last year, but we love NASCAR and we wish we were still in it. We’ve enjoyed every minute being part of this sport. It’s a great sport.
“When I look at the ratings, three of the four races that were up were on our network. Talladega was up, Daytona was up, and Atlanta was up.”
Flood’s final NASCAR production was the Brickyard 400, and he has been running Football Night in America this fall.
Wells, who has been an ace NASCAR TV race director since 1980, will do next summer’s TNT package of six races but won’t be returning to ESPN, where he first starred as NASCAR director.
“When NBC, TNT and Fox took over NASCAR (six years ago), there was a real big buzz about the sport,” Wells said. “And it spiked the ratings really well, and did what everybody thought it would do … and maybe even exceeded that.
“But now it’s to a point where people have seen it, and the casual fan may not be as interested. But we still have the hardcore fan.
“It’s got peaks and valleys. It went up and capped, and now it’s settling back.”
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NBC was terrible commercials every 5 seconds terrible announcers mistakes constantly…It was a rediculous attempt. Fox isnt much better being they ALWAYS cut off the victory celebration. I hope ESPN does well and i hope we get Rusty as an announcer…
Well agrees with Sean…can handle the Fox announcer alot more then B.P and crew. I believe it will be great to be back with ESPN …AMEN no more Wally’s World…WOOHOO!!!
Wherever it go’s I hope Darrel Waltrip is not part of it.
The thing I hated about NBC was all the freakin commercials!!! I’m excited for Rusty!
As much as I love Benny Parsons, I have to jump on this bandwagon, as well, with saying the NBC coverage was miserable to say the least. Commercials aired too often, the whole race field was never shown except for a few split seconds here and there, and we only heard about the top 5 drivers in any given race as though there were no other drivers present. If NASCAR lost any ratings, it was due to the poor presentation of the race put on by NBC.
Wow…I thought I was the only one who was annoyed with NBC. I’m glad to hear other people say the same things I’ve been thinking since I first started watching. The announcers make so many mistakes…I could do a better job. And they have so many commercials. Every single caution they went to a commercial, and they said that they would cut in from a commercial if something happened. That wasn’t true. There were plenty of times they came back and there was a caution and they had to show replays.
I’m glad NBC is done! I’m excited for next year.
There is a God in Heaven!! I spent the entire Homestead race screaming at NBC for the worst coverage I Have ever seen! For about 150 laps i thought that Jimmy Johnson was the only guy racing, because thats all the were showing. I hope that ESPN can see that NBC is an example of how not to cover a race. Now if we could just get NASCAR to get rid of Robby Gordon…
The commericals every 5 seconds really was what pissed me off, i mean come on. there’s a crash= commmerical, then come back still cleaning up = 5 sec update= commerical… announcers did make mistakes and last night they were like “can’t really tell if the was Montoya or Mears”… I was able to tell the first time they showed the relpy.. Montya definately had yellow outlines and tape on the front of the car and Mears didn’t… I mean I like Benny and Webber, but they should know more of the stuff i mean they have like a million computers and tvs…
I have no problem with NBC’s coverage, I get to see the race and that’s the most important thing to me. It doesnt’ matter to me who has NASCAR coverage as long as they show ALL the races in Canada!! I’m tired of having to miss races up here!! Enough of it already!
Cant anyone think back before the NBC,TNT,FOX deal. I mean their was races on so many channels like ESPN,TNN,CBS,ABC, that was a screwed up time to be a nascar fan if you didnt have all those channels you missed the race. If nascar was really thinking they might strat their on network oh wait they have SPEED just kidding.