Too Many Commercials
By M.L. Morgan
Well, race fans, most of us who were not able to attend the 7-23-00 race at Pocono were forced to endure a virtually endless barrage of commercials on the TBS broadcast. It was really ugly and should have been an embarrassment to Nascar. We doubt it was. Na$car is not bashful about their bottom-line mentality. And we are certain TBS has no shame, or they would have employed more knowledgeable announcers. But we will save that thought for another piece.
We are not naive - we know this is a business, as are all professional sports. We are well aware of the enormous costs, both of running the teams, and of broadcasting these events. And we know we are not forced to watch these broadcasts. We could watch Major League Baseball, for example. Those broadcasters would never cut to a commercial except during the middle of an inning. Baseball fans miss none of the action. Ditto the NBA and the NFL (don't know about the NHL). They have designated commercial timeouts so the fans miss none of the action. The networks know the fans would riot. Those of you old enough to remember the infamous "Heidi" broadcast of an NFL football game which was cut off with 2 minutes remaining to show "Heidi" know what I'm talking about. There was nationwide outrage. The networks listened to their viewers and the policy was changed.
"Heidi" and too many commercials are not completely analogous, but the comparison is warranted. Primarily because the networks were forced to listen to their viewers. Who is listening to the Nascar fans ?
If we are to believe Nascar Racing is the fastest growing sport in America, why are we supposed to accept in the next editorial breath that it doesn't matter if T.V. fans of Nascar see only 50-60% of a race. Race Views doesn't buy that. That's a crock. We think this notion has been foisted upon race fans for entirely too long.
In 2001 we will begin the 1st of 6 seasons in which the T.V. rights were negotiated completely by Nascar. The terms of the contracts are not public, but numbers like $400 million per season have been commonly bandied around. May well be in the realm of reality. We truly don't care as long as this contract results in better coverage for the fans.
We never ignore that the race cars are primarily rolling billboards. We don't find that offensive. The sponsors are investing 10 - 15 million to sponsor a top team. They deserve a return on their money. Rightfully so. But we think there is a viable alternative to the incessant commercial interruptions during the broadcast of the races. No, we are adamantly opposed to pay-per-view. And although satellite viewing without comercials is available to some, we don't endorse that, either.
What we are suggesting is the folks who profit most from our sport form a consortium to fund the T.V. broadcasts in order to make them commercial-free. That would include all of the primary sponsors, and all of the secondary sponsors - those who already have huge advertising investments - as well as the manufacturers. It would be a simple deal to run an unobtrusive trailer on the screen throughout the broadcast. All the sponsors would be given a lot of exposure for helping to make the broadcast commercial-free. The race fans would know who made it possible. Race fans might not wear sponge "cheese-heads", but we are very loyal. We would always patronize the sponsors who cared enough about our sport to be able to see the entire race when we are not able to attend.
We think this idea is very workable.
Mike Morgan
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