Boom Goes The Dynamite - Saturday Update

Update Saturday - SPEED coverage of Formula 1 had FOX Sports logos on the screen today report many network viewers. This transition is still the hot topic, so it remains the lead.

"Boom Goes The Dynamite" is one of the most popular viral sports videos of all time. Former Ball State University student Brian Collins will live on forever in the YouTube world. The clip shows the total meltdown of a TV sports broadcast, but Collins puts the video over the top with his now infamous line toward the end.

What this video shows is a situation where things are just going so wrong it's painful to watch. On Tuesday afternoon the FOX Media Group officially signed a TV deal with Major League Baseball. Just like that, the SPEED network's fate was sealed. It will cease to exist and become the FOX Sports 1 cable network in 2013.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Here is an excerpt from Joe Flint's outstanding "Company Town" column from the Los Angeles Times:

The new contracts take effect at the start of the 2014 season and run through 2021. FOX's rights fees will go from a per-season average of about $257 million to $495 million. The deal also clears the way for FOX to use baseball for a new national sports cable channel it is planning to launch in the summer of 2013. 

FOX also received broad rights to baseball highlights that could be used for a sports news program similar to ESPN's "SportsCenter." While FOX has declined to comment on its planned channel, people familiar with the matter said the company will convert its niche sports channel called SPEED into a broad-based sports network.

Besides baseball, Fox will also put NASCAR racing, college football, soccer and Ultimate Fighting on its cable channel. The working name for the channel is Fox Sports 1.

Well, there you have it. The baseball game of the week slated for the FOX Sports 1 network is going to be on Saturdays, either at 4 or 7PM Eastern Time. As Flint's column mentioned, FOX will also use the new network for college football on Saturdays as well.

While those sports put FOX out of the mix for a future bid on the Nationwide Series, it does keep hope alive that the Camping World Trucks may survive the cut. The trucks have given SPEED it's only major NASCAR series carried by the network from start to finish for many years.

These tentative plans also seem to suggest an end to the type of all-inclusive TV coverage from the Sprint Cup Series tracks of Saturday activities seen on SPEED in the past. A FOX Sports 1 commitment to both Major League Baseball and college football would add Saturday telecasts throughout most of the NASCAR season.

It's unclear why a mediocre sport like baseball would draw this kind of national TV interest. Like hockey, baseball has traditionally been a regional TV sport up until the playoffs. There are an endless array of MLB games already available on regional sports networks, home satellite and online services. It's a bit of a head-scratcher.

Our primary concern is the confirmation that SPEED will be ending. Flint was the first to offer a timeline for the transition in mentioning next summer. Since it would be impossible to begin 2013 NASCAR coverage in February and then end it in late April for baseball, we can perhaps speculate that this may be the final season for some familiar NASCAR programming and some familiar NASCAR faces on SPEED.

Change in sports television is almost always awkward. There is also little doubt more significant changes in NASCAR's future TV plans are on the way. The tough part is, despite all its faults, SPEED has done the heavy-lifting for NASCAR's TV needs for a very long time.

It still seems strange to believe it all may be over when the current NASCAR racing season ends. But as young Mr. Collins would say: "Boom goes the dynamite!"

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

Click here for a story on what happened to Collins on this fateful night, where he is now and his level of media involvement.

Boom Goes The Dynamite - Day 2

Update - There have been some sensational reader comments on this post so it will stay as the lead on Thursday.

"Boom Goes The Dynamite" is one of the most popular viral sports videos of all time. Former Ball State University student Brian Collins will live on forever in the YouTube world. The clip shows the total meltdown of a TV sports broadcast, but Collins puts the video over the top with his now infamous line toward the end.

What this video shows is a situation where things are just going so wrong it's painful to watch. On Tuesday afternoon the FOX Media Group officially signed a TV deal with Major League Baseball. Just like that, the SPEED network's fate was sealed. It will cease to exist and become the FOX Sports 1 cable network in 2013.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Here is an excerpt from Joe Flint's outstanding "Company Town" column from the Los Angeles Times:

The new contracts take effect at the start of the 2014 season and run through 2021. FOX's rights fees will go from a per-season average of about $257 million to $495 million. The deal also clears the way for FOX to use baseball for a new national sports cable channel it is planning to launch in the summer of 2013. 

FOX also received broad rights to baseball highlights that could be used for a sports news program similar to ESPN's "SportsCenter." While FOX has declined to comment on its planned channel, people familiar with the matter said the company will convert its niche sports channel called SPEED into a broad-based sports network.

Besides baseball, Fox will also put NASCAR racing, college football, soccer and Ultimate Fighting on its cable channel. The working name for the channel is Fox Sports 1.

Well, there you have it. The baseball game of the week slated for the FOX Sports 1 network is going to be on Saturdays, either at 4 or 7PM Eastern Time. As Flint's column mentioned, FOX will also use the new network for college football on Saturdays as well.

While those sports put FOX out of the mix for a future bid on the Nationwide Series, it does keep hope alive that the Camping World Trucks may survive the cut. The trucks have given SPEED it's only major NASCAR series carried by the network from start to finish for many years.

These tentative plans also seem to suggest an end to the type of all-inclusive TV coverage from the Sprint Cup Series tracks of Saturday activities seen on SPEED in the past. A FOX Sports 1 commitment to both Major League Baseball and college football would add Saturday telecasts throughout most of the NASCAR season.

It's unclear why a mediocre sport like baseball would draw this kind of national TV interest. Like hockey, baseball has traditionally been a regional TV sport up until the playoffs. There are an endless array of MLB games already available on regional sports networks, home satellite and online services. It's a bit of a head-scratcher.

Our primary concern is the confirmation that SPEED will be ending. Flint was the first to offer a timeline for the transition in mentioning next summer. Since it would be impossible to begin 2013 NASCAR coverage in February and then end it in late April for baseball, we can perhaps speculate that this may be the final season for some familiar NASCAR programming and some familiar NASCAR faces on SPEED.

Change in sports television is almost always awkward. There is also little doubt more significant changes in NASCAR's future TV plans are on the way. The tough part is, despite all its faults, SPEED has done the heavy-lifting for NASCAR's TV needs for a very long time.

It still seems strange to believe it all may be over when the current NASCAR racing season ends. But as young Mr. Collins would say: "Boom goes the dynamite!"

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

Click here for a story on what happened to Collins on this fateful night, where he is now and his level of media involvement.

The Road Not Taken (Updated)

We all have different paths in life. Often our direction is driven by opportunity and the desire for change. Sometimes change is thrust upon us and we simply must respond. The final sentence of the classic Robert Frost poem from 1915 says it very well. Confronted by two paths, choosing the right one can make all the difference.

In this column we are going to touch on several subjects. The passing of Chris Economaki will be first. The Dean of Motorsports loved ESPN when the network got cranked up in the early 1980's. Economaki got the idea, the technology and made the most of his opportunities with the cable network. He gladly took the road less traveled and loved every minute of it.

In the early 1980's my late friend Adrian Karsten and I were at the ESPN Christmas party held at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington, CT. ESPN was an oddity, an all-sports cable network and the party attracted a incredible mix of personalities. One man came to our table and loudly asked to "borrow" our unused bottle of red wine. It was Economaki.

When asked why he was in a small Connecticut town in the dead of winter he gave his typical reply. "I never miss a good party," he said. To have someone of that stature in both the TV and motorsports worlds at the Christmas party of a start-up cable TV network was powerful.

Needless to say, he eventually wound-up holding court for those of us involved with motorsports at the network. As you may expect, many stick-and-ball types had absolutely no idea who he was but they could not stay away from his charismatic personality. The memory of that night and his wonderful stories is what comes up first for me when Economaki is the subject.

The sadness of the Economaki passing comes amid changes that will affect what has been done here at TDP over the past several seasons. Rather than have a long discussion, let's just say that my desire to watch live Sprint Cup Series races has faded for a variety of reasons. This weekend's race will move to the DVR and be reviewed at a later date. This switch also ends the pre and post-race TV show viewing.

We had been developing the #TDP1 hashtag for weekend Sprint Cup Series races, but that Twitter activity is going to end. Twitter has been an interesting experiment and one that has provided a lot of good NASCAR information. These days, it has skewed into a breeding ground for marketing and special interest content.

This blog is not ending, just taking on a new format. TDP will continue with columns on weekdays. The topics will range beyond NASCAR and include the digital issues confronting motorsports, the future of networks like SPEED and what the motorsports TV landscape will look like in 2013. The media-related changes now in progress are major and happening at lightning speed.

I appreciate your patience during this transition and hope you will continue to read TDP in its new form. Thanks for all the support on race weekends, but life goes on and change is something we all deal with on a regular basis. The new week will start with a wrap-up of the Sprint Cup Series telecast on Sunday night. Hope to see you then. Have a great weekend.

Update: There was nothing to discuss after viewing the Dover Sprint Cup Series race on the DVR. New columns on media topics will appear this week. If you would like to leave a Dover TV coverage comment, please do it on this post. Thank you.

NASCAR TV: The Cart Before The Horse

The word is on the street that FOX Sports is back in the driver's seat with NASCAR. The Sports Business Journal suggests that FOX is about to announce a new TV contract with the sanctioning body. The current agreement expires at the end of 2014.

It's pretty easy to understand why FOX wants to get this deal done. The company is about to kill the cable network we now know as SPEED. FOX uses words like "rebranding" to explain this change, but the bottom line is that the only TV network originally dedicated to motorsports has failed.

Once NASCAR allows FOX to sign on the dotted line for Sprint Cup Series races, SPEED will become the FOX Sports 1 cable network and carry sports of all types. The implied promise by FOX to NASCAR is that there will still be NASCAR programming on the new network. Unfortunately, history tells a different tale.

The very reason SPEED moved from Stamford, CT to Charlotte, NC years ago was to become the official NASCAR cable TV network. Prior to that transition, SpeedVision carried a variety of programming related to cars, boats, planes and motorcycles.  The new company buying the network made no bones about the fact their agenda was NASCAR. That company was FOX.

FOX was so committed to NASCAR that it became a partner in the official TV production arm of the sport, then called NASCAR Images. It was all going to be so perfect. FOX would continue to carry live Sprint Cup Series races, be a partner with NASCAR in TV production and open a 24 hour cable TV network to show those programs.

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to NASCAR nirvana. Things quickly fell apart. FOX and NASCAR quietly parted company in the ownership of NASCAR Images. SPEED's management parade then saw an eroding of the commitment to motorsports and the rise of reality/lifestyle programming.

Ultimately, SPEED became a two-headed monster that made no sense. Motorsports on Friday through Sunday and some of the worst reality and lifestyle programming ever produced for American television on Monday through Thursday. All the while, the SPEED management never saw the big picture.

Now, it's NASCAR's turn to either remember the past or get burned by it. Once FOX has a signed deal for the Sprint Cup Series events, there is absolutely no incentive for the company to make NASCAR programming a priority for the new FOX Sports 1 network. As veteran fans know, this type of support or shoulder programming is vital to the sport.

From January through November, SPEED is the official TV network of NASCAR. Even without a Sprint Cup Series points race or any Nationwide Series events, SPEED is NASCAR's most important TV partner. Whether it is practice, qualifying or pre and post-race programming no network comes close to SPEED.

The network has single-handedly kept the Camping World Truck Series alive with sparkling old school coverage aimed directly at the TV viewer. Free from agendas and full of characters, SPEED makes the rag-tag series come to life with hardcore coverage of just plain racing.

The new agenda of FOX Sports is to use the millions of homes already subscribed to SPEED as a platform to chase the ESPN franchise and revenue stream by developing the FOX Sports 1 network. Broadening the agenda of the new network by adding mainstream sports like Major League Baseball, college football and news will deeply affect motorsports in general.

In the current TV deal, NASCAR went for the dollars and the results were not good. The sanctioning body was forced to buy back it's own digital (online) rights from TV partner Turner. ESPN has buried the Nationwide Series every year once college football begins and the network's Chase coverage has been panned.

FOX comes in with a splash at Daytona, makes a lot of noise about itself and then goes away. The only broadcast TV network left in the entire TV contract, this season FOX featured the Waltrip brothers and their self-promoting agendas. It's not hard to imagine that Darrell and Michael may be in the TV booth together in the new deal.

A NASCAR on FOX announcer hinted months ago on Twitter that FOX may be expanding the amount of Sprint Cup Series races the network covers in the new contract. It is no secret that there is no love lost between NASCAR and TNT after years of digital tension between the two companies that ultimately cost NASCAR tens of millions of dollars. Those 6 TNT races may be on the negotiating table.

The bottom line is that making a new deal for Sprint Cup Series races on FOX without locking in a full season of support programming on FOX Sports 1 would be a huge mistake. You can't sell the bacon without the sizzle and losing the practice, qualifying and news programs that now air on SPEED would be a disaster.

Many TDP columns were written asking SPEED to expand NASCAR programming to weeknights. The answer was no. The concept of a weekday morning NASCAR news and interview show, perhaps in cooperation with MRN/Sirius radio, was panned. The idea of a nightly NASCAR news show was openly mocked for years. Now, these issues have come full circle.

FOX is simply a company chasing higher profit margins through the conversion of an existing specialized cable TV network to a  general sports network. The company is not partners with NASCAR. FOX wants Sprint Cup Series races for its broadcast network until other sports can fill Sunday afternoons.

When the news of this new FOX deal with NASCAR emerges, keep an eye on what else is included other than the races. That should be a clear-cut sign of just how well NASCAR negotiated and also what real agenda of FOX emerges after the money changes hands.

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

Boom Goes The Dynamite!

"Boom Goes The Dynamite" is one of the most popular viral sports videos of all time. Former Ball State University student Brian Collins will live on forever in the YouTube world. The clip shows the total meltdown of a TV sports broadcast, but Collins puts the video over the top with his now infamous line toward the end.

What this video shows is a situation where things are just going so wrong it's painful to watch. On Tuesday afternoon the FOX Media Group officially signed a TV deal with Major League Baseball. Just like that, the SPEED network's fate was sealed. It will cease to exist and become the FOX Sports 1 cable network in 2013.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Here is an excerpt from Joe Flint's outstanding "Company Town" column from the Los Angeles Times:

The new contracts take effect at the start of the 2014 season and run through 2021. FOX's rights fees will go from a per-season average of about $257 million to $495 million. The deal also clears the way for FOX to use baseball for a new national sports cable channel it is planning to launch in the summer of 2013. 

FOX also received broad rights to baseball highlights that could be used for a sports news program similar to ESPN's "SportsCenter." While FOX has declined to comment on its planned channel, people familiar with the matter said the company will convert its niche sports channel called SPEED into a broad-based sports network.

Besides baseball, Fox will also put NASCAR racing, college football, soccer and Ultimate Fighting on its cable channel. The working name for the channel is Fox Sports 1.

Well, there you have it. The baseball game of the week slated for the FOX Sports 1 network is going to be on Saturdays, either at 4 or 7PM Eastern Time. As Flint's column mentioned, FOX will also use the new network for college football on Saturdays as well.

While those sports put FOX out of the mix for a future bid on the Nationwide Series, it does keep hope alive that the Camping World Trucks may survive the cut. The trucks have given SPEED it's only major NASCAR series carried by the network from start to finish for many years.

These tentative plans also seem to suggest an end to the type of all-inclusive TV coverage from the Sprint Cup Series tracks of Saturday activities seen on SPEED in the past. A FOX Sports 1 commitment to both Major League Baseball and college football would add Saturday telecasts throughout most of the NASCAR season.

It's unclear why a mediocre sport like baseball would draw this kind of national TV interest. Like hockey, baseball has traditionally been a regional TV sport up until the playoffs. There are an endless array of MLB games already available on regional sports networks, home satellite and online services. It's a bit of a head-scratcher.

Our primary concern is the confirmation that SPEED will be ending. Flint was the first to offer a timeline for the transition in mentioning next summer. Since it would be impossible to begin 2013 NASCAR coverage in February and then end it in late April for baseball, we can perhaps speculate that this may be the final season for some familiar NASCAR programming and some familiar NASCAR faces on SPEED.

Change in sports television is almost always awkward. There is also little doubt more significant changes in NASCAR's future TV plans are on the way. The tough part is, despite all its faults, SPEED has done the heavy-lifting for NASCAR's TV needs for a very long time.

It still seems strange to believe it all may be over when the current NASCAR racing season ends. But as young Mr. Collins would say: "Boom goes the dynamite!"

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

Click here for a story on what happened to Collins on this fateful night, where he is now and his level of media involvement.

The Road Not Taken

We all have different paths in life. Often our direction is driven by opportunity and the desire for change. Sometimes change is thrust upon us and we simply must respond. The final sentence of the classic Robert Frost poem from 1915 says it very well. Confronted by two paths, choosing the right one can make all the difference.

In this column we are going to touch on several subjects. The passing of Chris Economaki will be first. The Dean of Motorsports loved ESPN when the network got cranked up in the early 1980's. Economaki got the idea, the technology and made the most of his opportunities with the cable network. He gladly took the road less traveled and loved every minute of it.

In the early 1980's my late friend Adrian Karsten and I were at the ESPN Christmas party held at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington, CT. ESPN was an oddity, an all-sports cable network and the party attracted a incredible mix of personalities. One man came to our table and loudly asked to "borrow" our unused bottle of red wine. It was Economaki.

When asked why he was in a small Connecticut town in the dead of winter he gave his typical reply. "I never miss a good party," he said. To have someone of that stature in both the TV and motorsports worlds at the Christmas party of a start-up cable TV network was powerful.

Needless to say, he eventually wound-up holding court for those of us involved with motorsports at the network. As you may expect, many stick-and-ball types had absolutely no idea who he was but they could not stay away from his charismatic personality. The memory of that night and his wonderful stories is what comes up first for me when Economaki is the subject.

The sadness of the Economaki passing comes amid changes that will affect what has been done here at TDP over the past several seasons. Rather than have a long discussion, let's just say that my desire to watch live Sprint Cup Series races has faded for a variety of reasons. This weekend's race will move to the DVR and be reviewed at a later date. This switch also ends the pre and post-race TV show viewing.

We had been developing the #TDP1 hashtag for weekend Sprint Cup Series races, but that Twitter activity is going to end. Twitter has been an interesting experiment and one that has provided a lot of good NASCAR information. These days, it has skewed into a breeding ground for marketing and special interest content.

This blog is not ending, just taking on a new format. TDP will continue with columns on weekdays. The topics will range beyond NASCAR and include the digital issues confronting motorsports, the future of networks like SPEED and what the motorsports TV landscape will look like in 2013. The media-related changes now in progress are major and happening at lightning speed.

I appreciate your patience during this transition and hope you will continue to read TDP in its new form. Thanks for all the support on race weekends, but life goes on and change is something we all deal with on a regular basis. The new week will start with a wrap-up of the Sprint Cup Series telecast on Sunday night. Hope to see you then. Have a great weekend.

Waiting For Godot - Updated

Update: Still waiting for info on new MLB and NASCAR TV contracts. No new update on the situation with SPEED or the future plans for FOX Sports 1. Lots of cards being played close to the chest right now. New column up Thursday night with more ongoing NASCAR media topics.

In the classic play "Waiting for Godot" the two main characters pass the time just waiting. They have no set schedule of when their mysterious friend will arrive. They do not know what he looks like, how he is dressed or what his agenda will be when he shows up. The entire play is about the torture of just plain waiting.

Sometime this week, the executives at FOX Sports are going to put pen to paper and sign a new multi-billion dollar TV deal with Major League Baseball. The new contract will begin with the 2014 season and will feature an expansion of games across the FOX TV properties. Once the ink is dry, the waiting begins.

One of the key elements of the new contract will be a slate of games on the cable TV network we now know as SPEED. In order to accommodate baseball and other types of sports, the network will be rebranded. The new name circulating in the media is the FOX Sports 1 cable network.

In terms of NASCAR content, SPEED is currently a two-headed monster. Shows like RaceHub, SpeedCenter and Wind Tunnel are produced directly by the network at its studios in north Charlotte, NC. The network also produces its own Camping World Truck Series races, the Daytona Twins and the All-Star race.

The other programming originating from the Sprint Cup Series tracks is produced for SPEED by NASCAR's in-house TV company. NASCAR Productions works from the Hall of Fame TV studios in downtown Charlotte. This group also produces official highlight packages that air in NASCAR-related shows on several networks. The key is that they control TV production at the tracks.

Once things with baseball are official and change is on the way, there will be lots of issues to ponder while we wait. FOX is also said to be on the verge of a new TV deal with NASCAR. The current contract expires after the 2014 season. It will be interesting to see just what remains of the existing NASCAR content now carried by SPEED.

FOX controls its cable networks from an base of operations in Los Angeles, CA. With Major League Baseball and other general sports programming set to air on FOX Sports 1, part of the waiting game will be to discuss what will become of the existing SPEED studios and staff back in North Carolina.

If production on studio-based NASCAR and general motorsports shows continues, it would make sense to keep the Charlotte facility. On the other hand, FOX may simply turn to NASCAR Productions to originate the NASCAR content remaining on the new network and shutter the existing SPEED studios.

SPEED currently also has digital offerings that focus on an extensive motorsports-themed website and a broadband video channel called SPEED2. With NASCAR exclusively in control of all the sport's digital offerings beginning in 2013, what would become of both the SPEED website and the broadband channel is a toss-up.

SPEED originally started in Stamford, CT as a network called SpeedVision. It then moved to Charlotte and took up residence sharing production facilities with a christian religious network for several years. Finally, after a long wait, the current digital studios were built on Charlotte's north side as a "lasting investment."

While a move to LA of staff members in programming and administrative departments would work, there is a large group of SPEED employees and freelancers who are tied to the Charlotte area through personal and professional connections. NASCAR is unique in having most of the TV and media personalities in the sport living in the same general area.

So, once the baseball deal is done the waiting game begins in earnest for many of the on-air personalities, producers and production staff at SPEED. The next shoe to drop should be the new NASCAR contract, which will hopefully make very clear just how much of the support programming that SPEED has aired for many years will remain.

There are may ways to approach waiting. Here is a quote from the play about that topic:

"Let us not waste our time in idle discourse. Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late!"

While this NASCAR season is winding down, 2013 may be a significant challenge for those involved with both SPEED and NASCAR. The worst part of waiting is not knowing anything about the situation about to unfold. That is precisely what many NASCAR TV veterans in Charlotte are dealing with right now.

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