They were treated like a red headed step child by FOX.
Never thought i would ever see these day's but they are here.
updated by @max-plummer: 12/05/16 04:04:08PM
They were treated like a red headed step child by FOX.
Never thought i would ever see these day's but they are here.
This is what I have learned today about that whole situation.
1. NASCAR has decided to review it's procedure as far as approving sponsorson a going forward basis. Part of that was the out right blatant orders from a Connecticut politician for FOX to not televise the race. NASCAR has stated its policy for sponsorship is now under review.
2. By way of a "compromise" FOX agreed to mention the NRA sponsorship once per hour. I'm pretty sure they did that but I didn't really count the references.
3. This is sure to add fuel to the fire now that the news is out that a man committed suicide with a pistol in the infield near the end of the race. I have already read the reports from Texas and I imagine it will make national news by tomorrow if, in fact, it didn't tonight.
4. Friday I saw several news clips from the Texas race last year on National new broadcasts, all claiming NASCAR was allowing the NRA to advertise at a most inopportune time. As much negative publicity as possible was being fed to the National News outlets.
I've also read - though I'm not sure how absolutely true this is - that the NRA paid SMI and Eddie Gossage for the naming rights. But they did NOT pay FOX extra for "drops" and really didn't expect them. They paid for and got local coverage, signage, fan attention, etc. without paying extra to play to a larger audience.
I think the deal with the TV networks and NASCAR is the 1x/hour mention. Best I recall, this negotiated provision was the result of an event waaaay back in 2001 - the first year of the FOX-TNT-NBC deal. Cracker Barrel sponsored the spring Atlanta race - Harvick's 1st win - but didn't pay FOX anything extra. As a result, FOX gave ZERO mentions to CB to the race and even signed their own title sponsor so to speak who dominated the commercial breaks. CB, Atlanta, and NASCAR were all bent.
I wonder if the uproar would have been as great if an individual gunmaker would have been the sponsor vs. NRA. The Ruger, Remington, Smith & Wesson, etc. 500 may not have stirred the pot near as much as the broader NRA. Not sure. But, it is a joke how off the rails folks have gone with this thing.
A UK paper is already politicizing the sad incident of the guy doing himself in with this inflammatory headline.
Chase, you are right about NRA not purchasing advertising on the telecast.
The FOX network's contract with NASCAR mandated one mention per hour of the event sponsor and that's what they did.
For many years the networks weren't required to provide ANY event sponsor mention. TBS was a great one to NEVER mention an event sponsor who didn't buy advertising. That's why the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond was called the Richmond 400 on the telecast and the Coca Cola 600 still the World 600 on their telecasts. This happened on telecasts by ALL the networks. Don't buy adverting during the event telecast, don't get mentions.
I'm not a supporter of FOX, but they haven't done anything with the lack of sponsor mentions at Texas that hasn't been done since the original days of race telecasts.
I saw the reports of the shooting suicide in numerous news outlets. Very bad timing for NRA, but I don't think it was mentioned during the FOX race telecast.
