Gentlemen, Start Your Sports Cars

It was a news item that snuck right past many NASCAR fans. After all, sports car racing is for a different breed of motorsports fan. All the different types of cars on the same track is confusing. The drivers are mostly foreign, rarely well-known and there is little national media coverage surrounding the sport.

Well, all of that is about to change. The two major professional sports car series operating in the US have merged. The American Le Mans Series was owned by Don Panoz. The Grand Am Rolex series was owned by Jim France. Now, they are both owned by NASCAR. That's right, NASCAR.

Click here for a review of the official merger announcement from Jeff Olson at USA Today. As Olson reported, the total value of the deal was approximately $10 million. Aside from the under-used Road Atlanta and the crumbling Sebring track, the concept that NASCAR wants to totally control this brand of racing in the US is fascinating.

It's not hard to remember France talking about his Grand Am plans long ago. For the top series, he took the NASCAR template of requiring teams to use basically one chassis and gave them a choice of tires and engines. This was the polar opposite of the classic Le Mans style sports car environment of manufacturer prototypes fighting it out while trying to avoid the racing dentists in their rent-a-ride Porsches.

The result of the France plan was that Grand Am got a TV package and some media, but ultimately detached from the global sports car community. The season opening Rolex 24 race from Daytona took on an entirely different look. Grand Am's own "company cars" raced against each other without the feel and flair of real sports car racing.

France is NASCAR's executive vice president and vice chairman. He and Panoz will share senior management duties of the newly-merged sports car series with France taking the senior position. Lesa France Kennedy, who oversees the family's racetrack properties, and NASCAR's deputy general counsel Karen Leetzow are also prominent members of the new organization's board of directors.

All of this leaves a lot of unanswered questions on the table. The new organization has no name but will begin racing in 2014. There are no technical rules in place, no class configurations and few specifics available. Guarded optimism has been the polite response from various manufacturers.

""While we await further details on the homologations and rules for the individual classes," Ford director of racing Jamie Allison told Olson, "the new, unified approach has a lot of appeal to Ford due to the potential international alignment."

The bottom line is that this unholy alliance is essentially a buyout of ALMS by France and NASCAR. Click here for another take on the deal from Chris Gill of Gatehouse News Service. While it makes sense for the two weakened series to unite, even trying to imagine what configuration or classes the series may run is an exercise in futility.

Grand Am makes use of Kennedy's International Speedway Corporation tracks and runs several weekends with various NASCAR series. Now, France has cornered the market on professional sports car racing in the country and can essentially set the tone for the future with a blank piece of paper. While Panoz was the sole connection to Le Mans and the international set, his tone seems to have changed.

"This series that we are putting together is the American Sports Car Series," Panoz told Gill. "We have to take care of our own business, our own market, addressing our sponsors, our fans, our teams, and that's exactly what we are going to do. Of course we are going to pay attention to what's going on around us, but we'll be acting responsibly in our own best interests."

Those words may foreshadow yet another switch in the strategic direction of sports car racing in North America. Whether this new series becomes more closely aligned with NASCAR in terms of racing, business practices and shared media resources is yet to be determined.

One thing is for sure, France and company will have a very busy 2013 trying to build a healthy sports car franchise amid a rapidly changing automotive marketplace and shrinking sponsorship environment. This may be the very last chance for sports car racing to get a toehold in North America and slowly try to climb the ladder of racing success.

We invite your opinion on this topic. Comments may be moderated prior to posting.

TV Negotiations Suggest Rebranding Of SPEED

It was back in April when the Sports Business Journal first raised the possibility of the new management team at FOX Sports making some changes to SPEED. The FOX team had previously taken the outdoor and extreme sports network FUEL and turned it into a network full of boxing and mixed martial arts. Clearly, this group is about advancing their own agenda. Click here to read the original story.

Monday, word came from several sources that the ongoing TV rights negotiations over Major League Baseball had revealed some more details of the FOX plan. Click here for a story from our friends at Sports Media Watch. This is the first time that plans for a new FOX cable sports network have been revealed as part of a negotiation for TV rights.

In other words, FOX had on the table an offer to host a significant amount of MLB content on a network not yet in existence. The popular theory is that this mystery network is SPEED. That would help to make sense of the fact that SPEED continues to offer Pimp My Ride shows from many years ago and other dated programming. The network seems to simply be riding out the existing TV contracts and waiting for the change to come.

SPEED's multiple personalities are well known by motorsports fans. Once a thriving network deeply invested in racing of all kinds, the network took a hard left years ago when it came to weekdays. The term "automotive lifestyle programming" came to mean cheaply scripted reality shows that continue to this day. Most have been nothing short of disastrous.

At the same time, Friday through Sunday on SPEED continued to deliver some of the best motorsports coverage ever seen on television. Formula One, NASCAR and sports cars are among the series that have thrived in this environment. Weekends continue to be a hotbed of racing on SPEED.

The network's former president came from a regional sports network, an RSN. That environment is quite different than a high-profile national cable network. SPEED never developed a weekday morning show, never chased a noon news program and never established weekly shows that supported the various motorsports series shown on the network. All NASCAR programming not originating from a track was eventually cancelled.

The only current NASCAR weekday offering, a show called Race Hub, is said to have resulted from NASCAR forcing SPEED to produce that series in exchange for exclusive rights to the Hall of Fame inductions and other coverage. For many years SPEED executives had stubbornly declared no one watched TV for NASCAR content on weekdays. Race Hub was thrashed together in days.

While most believe it will be SPEED that is rebranded, reporter Joe Flint at the LA Times believes that FUEL may be the network to become FOX's version of ESPN. Click here to read his take on the subject and the baseball negotiations. Most believe, however, that SPEED is the network that will go away.

All of this comes because FOX missed the train long ago on starting a national cable sports network. Back in the mid-90's, FOX purchased a group of regional sports networks and one 24 hour stand-alone network that operated under the Prime Network banner. Instead of pushing ahead nationally, FOX chose to operate the regional networks and used the renamed FOX Sports Network (FSN) to provide additional programming to them.

These days, FOX Sports finds itself fighting at a disadvantage. ABC pairs with ESPN, CBS now has the CBS Sports Network and NBC changed VERSUS into the NBC Sports Network. That gives each of those parties an opportunity to spread sports programming between broadcast and cable networks. FOX desperately needs the same to remain viable in negotiations for sports properties.

SPEED's production facilities and administrative group are located in the Charlotte, NC area. The remainder of the FOX Sports cable networks operate from Los Angeles, CA. The best case scenario for the Charlotte-based employees would be for that group to continue to originate the motorsports studio shows like Race Hub, SpeedCenter and Wind Tunnel.

In today's digital world, SPEED also has a thriving website and a broadband channel that carries additional motorsports programming. If these two projects are allowed to continue when the network itself is rebranded, the impact to the remaining motorsports programming may be minimal.

The other side of the coin is for FOX to simply close SPEED and have NASCAR Productions, the in-house TV arm of NASCAR, produce all the NASCAR-related programming. The sanctioning body has a studio, production facilities and and an experienced staff already in place at the Hall of Fame building in downtown Charlotte.

In talking to friends involved in sports programming, it was pointed out to me that motorsports events directly conflict with many of the sports properties that FOX Sports has been chasing or already owns. The bottom line is that when and if SPEED goes away, it is doubtful that the wall-to-wall coverage of NASCAR practice, qualifying and racing will remain intact on the new network.

It seems that the only real question is when this change will take place. The current TV contract between FOX Sports and NASCAR ends at the conclusion of the 2014 season. But, that certainly would not prevent FOX from changing the network name and other programming content on SPEED next year. It would just mandate that the current NASCAR content continue.

As negotiations take place on other key sports products, we should continue to get a clearer picture of what FOX Sports plans to do with SPEED and when the FOX Sports 1 cable network may appear on our channel guide. As we always say, the only thing constant in sports TV is change.

We welcome your opinion on this topic. Your comment may be moderated prior to posting.

Join Us On Twitter For Live Race Chat

Note: We will be hosting a live stream on Twitter during the Sprint Cup Series race from Atlanta using the #TDP1 hashtag. Search it to see our conversations, add it to your tweets to be included. There will be a post here immediately after the checkered flag for your TV post-race wrap up.

TDP will return next week with new columns. Thanks for your patience this week. There are a lot of ongoing TV and media stories that we will attempt to update. Thanks to Jeff Gordon PR for the picture via Twitter.

Race Wrap: Sprint Cup Series From Atlanta On ESPN

The ESPN TV team continued coverage of the Sprint Cup Series this season with the Sunday night race from the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Nicole Briscoe hosted from the Infield Pit Center. Allen Bestwick handled the lap-by-lap coverage. Rusty Wallace was in rare form and the booth analysts Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree provided good information.

The reality check for viewers was the combination of the lack of racing action and the typical TV style of ESPN. Without searching for stories the telecast had lots of two-car camera shots with Bestwick and company trying to keep the conversation flowing. It was not an easy task.

College football again affected the pre-race show, as it did for the Nationwide Series telecast on Saturday. This was the final weekend without NFL regular season games, so a college game on Sunday was on the schedule. Luckily, it was a one-sided affair and the NASCAR Countdown show was started on the ESPNEWS network.

Once the actual race started, complaints flowed in from fans about a wide variety of issues with the NASCAR.com online pay services. No team scanners, no telemetry and a large time lag made the fans line-up at the virtual complaint window. Eventually, the bugs were sorted out but this type of situation has been all too common.

During the race, several cautions for debris were thrown and ESPN did not even attempt to show the debris on-camera. After the Saturday incident toward the finish of the Nationwide Series race with Brad Keselowski, it seemed strange not to have TV really focus on making sure to document for the TV viewers what caused the racing to be stopped.

Green flag pitstops normally are presented in a split-screen video box so viewers can continue to see the leaders racing at speed while also viewing the key cars pitting. This was not done consistently, but got better as the race progressed. The same was true for showing full-screen replays of passing or other incidents while the race itself was under green. These needed the split-screen approach.

With long green flag runs, it is tough to integrate the Infield Pit Studio crew and give them a continuing role in the telecast. There was just not too much to discuss that had not already been covered from the TV booth. Trying to do that in this race made for some awkward moments.

ESPN does not start split-screen commercials until the final ten Chase races. This is one of the best examples of a race that needed them. Long green flag runs meant missing substantive time in the race with every commercial. With the heavy commercial load in Sprint Cup Series races, fans missed a lot of laps.

The good news for ESPN is that the mix of on-air personalities is the best ever heading into the Chase. Ray Evernham gets Rusty Wallace fired up, while Bestwick and Briscoe are very good at keeping order and directing traffic. Petree and Jarrett work well together and finally Jarrett is speaking out and assuming his role as the lead analyst.

The bad news is the continuing inability of the producer and director to grasp what is going on in the race and relate that to the fans. This season there is no "script," but rather a mind-numbing pattern of tight camera shots as if TV viewers are purposefully being kept from seeing the actual racing on the track. It makes little sense and forces key issues in the race to be offered through replays.

It has been made clear that this style of production is what ESPN wants and fans have to accept it. The problem is that the post-race stories reported by the pit road reporters are often the ones missed during the live telecast. Stepping back, both figuratively and literally, for a better perspective on the racing would certainly help this effort.

We invite your opinion on the ESPN telecast from Atlanta. Comments may be moderated prior to posting.

The Untimely Death Of "Wind Tunnel" (Updated)

Update: Lots of comments on this column, including several from media members who suggested I was indicating that Wind Tunnel was going to be cancelled. Here is the quote from this very column: "So, goodbye Wind Tunnel. My time as a viewer is done." Pretty sure that statement makes things clear.

The long and winding road of the cable TV network that started life as SpeedVision continues to twist. The latest victim is the Sunday night motorsports television franchise called Wind Tunnel.

The original idea behind the series was to echo the success of the Larry King Live show on CNN. King made a living mixing high-profile guests with the common man through telephone calls from viewers around the world. CNN had King on seven nights a week and for many years he was untouchable.

Dave Despain became the Larry King of Wind Tunnel because of his broad experience in motorsports. Despain paid his dues and grew into a lovable TV curmudgeon by using his dry sense of humor and inability to accept what the motorsports PR types tried to pass along as being the truth.

At one time Wind Tunnel was also on multiple nights a week and attracted a wide variety of motorsports personalities from seemingly all types of racing. That was also a time when the SPEED management was committed to building a TV network around racing. Those days have been long gone for many years.

Despain wound-up with an hour of his franchise on TV Sunday nights and an extra chunk streamed online when the TV show was done. It was an interesting mix, but one that allowed the voice of the fan to be heard clearly as an integral part of the show. Now, that voice has been silenced.

SPEED has quietly ended viewer participation in the TV hour of Wind Tunnel. No more phone calls, no more emails and selected tweets jammed painfully into a moment late in the show. The network that prides itself on being interactive has slammed the door on its own fans. The ability to ask a question of a guest is gone and so is the very spirit of the program.

For many years SPEED's senior management steadfastly refused to produce a NASCAR news and interview program on weekdays. No one would watch, they said. Then, along came Race Hub. There was a time when SPEED panned the concept of trying to create a general motorsports news and highlight program on weekends. Now, we have SpeedCenter. These two programs now have the network spotlight.

Left in the lurch is Despain. The last few weeks have seen him pushed aside in no uncertain terms. The most embarrassing a co-hosting appearance by James Hinchcliffe that put the IndyCar driver literally into the host position and Despain to the guest seat. The pain on Despain's face was easy to see.

The fundamental appeal of live TV done in this setting is the uncertainty of what would result. Over the years, Despain and his callers have drawn-out some amazing responses on hot button topics from a wide variety of motorsports personalities and executives. For many years, news was made on Wind Tunnel.

Now, following the controlled model of Race Hub, there is no sense of the unexpected. There is no emotional topic that has tempers running hot. Appearances are prearranged, focused and planned. Even zingers from contributors like Robin Miller or guests like Paul Tracy cannot breathe life into this format.

Despain never had co-hosts for the hour because most motorsports experts focus on only one area. With the new format of SPEED personalities being involved viewers get Tommy Kendall talking NASCAR diversity and Ralph Sheheen sharing his Formula One expertise. It's not fair to those involved or the viewers to force these contributors into this role.

It's been wonderful to watch Wind Tunnel over the years. Those TV memories, both good and bad, were pure and spontaneous. The current crop of talking heads fits the SPEED mold of politically correct guests who say the right thing and move along. There are SPEED programs to promote, marketing agendas to be met and network personalities who need more exposure.

The bottom line is that without the strong voice of the fans, Wind Tunnel is nothing. The self-serving rehash of events from the weekend with FOX and SPEED personalities commenting makes little sense. Before Wind Tunnel, fans see an hour of SpeedCenter and then an hour of NASCAR Victory Lane.

Instead of making news and pushing hot buttons, Despain is now slaved to repeating racing topics and showing scripted video highlights for the third time in the same evening. It must be a bitter pill to swallow for a man who developed this franchise from the start.

So, goodbye Wind Tunnel. My time as a viewer is done. Memories of this outstanding series can now join the others that SPEED has successfully managed right into the ground. When marketing and promotion push spontaneous and honest commentary aside, the results are almost never good. This version of Wind Tunnel is quickly proving that point.

We invite your opinion on this topic. Comments may be moderated prior to posting.

TV Timeout: The Orange Gloves Are Back

Lou Cappi and his magic orange gloves are back. Lou crosses his arms on the sidelines when the TV network covering his NFL game needs a timeout. The officials then stop the game. Lou keeps his arms crossed until the commercial is over and then the game rolls on. In his world, calling a timeout is simple.

I am happy to inform TDP readers that I am making a career change this holiday weekend and will be starting down a very different road next week. A TV timeout is needed for a couple of days as I work to get things arranged over in the real world. My new position is not NASCAR or media-related.

Over the next few weeks I will be working to determine my availability to interact on NASCAR TV and media topics. There certainly may be some changes on the way, but I hope to be able to continue to discuss the topics that make NASCAR fans passionate about how the sport is presented on TV.

I appreciate your patience. There will be a new post up after the Sprint Cup Series race in Atlanta is over. Have a safe and happy holiday weekend.

Timeout: Weather (Updated)

Updated: One more day of cleaning up in the area. Back Wednesday with a new column.

It was an interesting way to get home from school, but not too many cars were out on the streets of Southeastern Florida on Monday. Tropical Storm Isaac left behind up to a foot of rain and delivered it with some high winds and heavy surf.

TDP will be back Tuesday evening with a new NASCAR TV/media column. Thanks.