by RacingNews | Nov 5, 2014 | Media, NASCAR, NASCAR K&N Pro Series, TV Times
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (November 4, 2014) — NASCAR is racing into kids’ living rooms with an all-new docu-series on Nickelodeon titled, “Hammer Down,” which will premiere Wednesday, Nov. 5 at 10 p.m. ET during the NickSports programming block on Nicktoons. “Hammer Down” is an original, four-episode series featuring four of NASCAR’s rising stars – Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Darrell Wallace Jr. and Kenzie Ruston. It is the latest programming from a major sports league to join the sports block lineup, which airs every Wednesday from 9-11 p.m. ET.
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by RacingNews | Oct 17, 2014 | Media, NASCAR, TV Times
The brawls following the Charlotte Motor Speedway Chase race was the result of the heat being turned up on the drivers to stay in The Chase. With Talladega coming up this weekend, there could be a lot more fists flying. Here’s what it looks like going into Degga: Logano, Kyle Busch, Charlotte winner Harvick, Newman, Edwards, Gordon, Hamlin and Kahne are the top eight. After Talladega: Kenseth, Kaselowski, Johnson and Junior could be eliminated.
We’ve seen sports news reports that the Los Angeles mayor expects to announcement that a new NFL franchise will add a team to his city very soon. We know that NASCAR CEO Brian France has stated that he’d like to be part of that management team. Considering that Brian has signed two big NASCAR TV rights contracts, a move by NASCAR’s chief executive now may be the right time for him. He’ll leave NASCAR with big TV rights money for several years. Unfortunately, the TV ratings for The Chase to the Nextel Cup, his creation, haven’t kept pace with the money increase courtesy of Fox and the NBC sports networks.
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by | Jul 16, 2014 | Media, TV Times
By Lou Modestino
NASCAR’s problems of not selling tickets and dropping TV ratings is a situation that just has to be solved. Forget the excuses that all of sports world-wide are suffering with deficits due to a global ailing economy. Just because Brian France was able to get a huge increase over the previous contracts starting in 2015, it does not mean the problems are solved. That increase TV money is what is holding NASCAR together. But for how long? There’s a cliche in the rough and tumble business world. “Don’t tell me what you did for me yesterday. What are you going to do for me today,” say the captains of global industry.
We can’t believe those TV rights contracts don’t contain a performance clause that are tied to increased TV ratings! It’s time for NASCAR’s Brian France to get going. Let’s talk about Brian’s job performance review by the fans. We have seen reports on the social media that Brian is not held in high esteem by the folks who buy the tickets and are not watching the races on TV.
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by | Apr 11, 2014 | Media, TV Times
By Lou Modestino
What’s going to happen when we finally get a string of NASCAR races that don’t get delayed by rain and the TV ratings are still lousy? Are we going to get another NASCAR/Fox Sports spin? Frankly, I just can’t really get excited about the NASCAR events on TV. Not to mention the fact that the new qualifying for The Chase is “if you win-you’re in”. It’s all meant to make the drivers take chances and quit point chasing. But we’ve seen stories that even if you win that doesn’t assure a driver a spot in The Chase!?!
We think it’s good that Kurt Busch is winning and Brad Keselowski is miffed at him. Is it the rain that’s hurting ticket sales or is it the lack of competition? We’re still waiting for Fox Sports to get up off their duffs and and make a case to the big cable providers to add Fox Sports 2. We don’t mean for extra money either. Cable prices are high but the only redeeming factor is that there’s a lot of competition for Infinity/Comcast who are trying to fight off Verizon Fios and ATT.
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by | Mar 8, 2014 | Media, TV Times
By Lou Modestino
Kevin Harvick’s win at Phoenix was a plain and simple domination of the race. He led 78 consecutive laps of that race. “We’ve put a lot of work into the race car,” said Harvick in victory lane. Kevin has been a master of that track having won three out of four races at that track. Getting second was Junior who said, “We were just too far away to catch the leader. We worked our butts off before and during this race. Sixth place finisher Jimmie Johnson quipped, ” We could have used more time because I think it would have been different. But, I’ll still take this finish, anyway, even though we were off.” Fourth place Joey Logano echoed the other drivers comments then he also added, “We didn’t have enough to catch Brad (Keselowski). Brad finished third at the finish line.
Kurt Busch is still trying to reshape his image. He was on Fox Cable News last week telling Fox and Friends that he’s really up for racing in the Indy 500 and flying back to Charlotte for the Coca Cola 600 later that night. He could make the fans forget all of his past behavior problems if he’s somewhat successful.
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by | Feb 25, 2014 | Media, TV Times
By Lou Modestino
With the Daytona 500 and Speed Weeks over, it’s now the start of the grueling NASCAR season that won’t end until the last race at Homestead a week before Thanksgiving. It’s the longest season in sports. Let’s get down to what’s really bothering a lot of the fans that are still following NASCAR. It’s the original core of fans that were around before the fickle newbies left for other things. Like the youngsters who are more preoccupied with their ipods and ipads than NASCAR or any other sport.
The old hard core, who have stuck with NASCAR, are not very happy with the way it was doing business since Brian France took over the helm. Everything he did has been reversed. Brian, though, continues to stick with his tweaking of The Chase to the Nextel Cup. The core base fans hate The Chase format. They prefer the old way of determining an annual champion such as starting out at Daytona and ending up at Homestead purely on points. That’s the way NASCAR determined a champion in the Sprint Cup Series and that’s the way it’s still done in the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series.
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