TV Times – Brickyard Ratings Plunge Downward From ’06

ESPN’s coverage of Sunday’s Allstate 400 NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned a 4.1 overnight rating, Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Daily and the jayski.com webpage. The cable station’s rating was 14.6 percent lower than the overnight figure in 2006, when the race was aired on network television by NBC.

ESPN’s first daily news and information program totally dedicated to NASCAR, has move to a new time of 6 p.m. ET starting time. The 30-minute show on ESPN2 has aired at 6:30 p.m. since its debut in February.

NASCAR Now will continue with an expanded one-hour program on Mondays that will include extensive highlights of the weekend’s NASCAR NEXTEL Cup and NASCAR Busch Series races. The one-hour show will air at 5:30 p.m. The hour-long weekend edition of the program will continue to air at 10 a.m. on the days of NASCAR NEXTEL Cup races, either Saturday or Sunday. NASCAR Now is hosted by Erik Kuselias, Ryan Burr or Allen Bestwick and originates from ESPN’s High Definition studios in Bristol, Conn., with reporters Mike Massaro and Shannon Spake. Contributors include analysts Tim Brewer, Brad Daugherty, Stacy Compton and Boris Said, along with NASCAR insiders Terry Blount, Angelique Chengelis, Tim Cowlishaw, David Newton and Marty Smith, as well as D.J. Copp, a member of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s NASCAR team.

At recent C&W concert, the 4th Annual New England Country Festival, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA, ended up a major problem for the promoters and the local and state public safety officials. There were fistfights, vandalism, excessive noise and wild parties in the parking/camping lots, according to local press reports. There’s concerns about upcoming future concerts at that venue. One of the major problems resulted in people showing up without tickets who decided to party even though they couldn’t get into the stadium. The solution here would be not to admit anyone into the parking lots unless they produce a ticket beyond paying the camping fee. Most venues around the country that hold major motorsports events like the NASCAR Nextel Cup require tickets to the event to get into the parking lots. Especially those who come with tents, pop up campers, trailers and motorhomes who intend to be there overnight.

There’s a prevailing opinion that fans who attend motorsports events are major trouble makers and responsible for the rowdy behavior. In defense of that, most racing folks come with family, like wives, girlfriends and children, and are not looking to cause trouble. Most major motorsports venues do screen the fans coming into the parking lots and for that reason have minimum amounts of problems with attendees. Consider that Gillette Stadium has less seating capacity versus motorsports venues are 100,000 plus. On an economy of scale motorsports events don’t have the magnitude of problems associated with musical concerts. In the past, motorsports fans have taken a bad rap and have not challenged the perception of the media and the general public.

The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) has announced the members of AMA Team USA. The team will compete at the 2007 Motocross of Nations (MXoN) scheduled for September 22- 23, at Budds Creek Motocross Raceway in Maryland. The riders selected to represent the United States are James Stewart (MX1), Ryan Villopoto (MX2), and Ricky Carmichael (MX3).

Let’s check to see what’s on TV for the gearheads this weekend. Starting Friday it’s the Grand-Am Rolex from Watkins’s Glen at 8 p.m. on Speed. Earlier in the day ESPN2 offers Cup Qualifying from that track at 3 p.m. followed by Busch Practice from that same track. The Duce also offers NASCAR Now at 6:30 p.m. Saturday picks up the momentum with Busch Qualifying on ESPN2 from The Glen at 11:30 p.m. RDS in Quebec airs the IRL Indy Car Series from Sparta, KY at noon. The Busch race from Watkins’s Glen airs on ESPN2 at 3 p.m. Speed kicks in with the ARCA RE/MAX race from Nashville at 6:30 p.m. and RDS airs a tape of the Busch event at The Glen in Quebec at 10:30 p.m. Sunday has NHRA Qualifying from Brainerd, MN at 12:30 a.m. on The Duce. That same channel comes back with NASCAR Now at 10 a.m. followed by NHRA Today. ESPN airs the Cup race from The Glen at 1 p.m. Surf over to ESPN2 for the Champ Car event from Elkhart Lake, WI at at 3 p.m. The Duce also airs the NHRA Finals from Brainerd, MN at 7 p.m. while TSN in Canada offers a tape of that same race at 8:30 p.m.(end)

NOTE: INFORMATION FOR THIS COLUMN CAME FROM VARIOUS REFERENCED SOURCES, PRESS RELEASES AND NOTES.