How Mighty Have Fallen; Charlotte ABC Station Drops Bristol Race for Redskins Exhibition
Current NASCAR
I saw this today. Looks like this is going on in 15-20 markets. Unreal to me. The Bristol night race is a pinnacle to the series. NASCAR may need to look at putting this the first weekend in Aug. before pre season starts for most teams. Although next year I have a strong hunch this race will be on NBCSN and not the major network of NBC so it won't matter anyway. Many of you may already know this is not the first year for this to happen it has been at least the last 5 years or so that ABC has diverted some markets to other channels to carry local football games. Pretty sad as it sounds like some of you are getting redirected to a non-HD channel which in my mind stinks as although back in the day I watched many races in non HD and it works fine this day and age it should be available to any and everyone who has a TV service on an event as big as the Saturday night race at Bristol.
I agree with the gentleman who spoke earlier the giants have started to take over and at this point have their claws in very well that being the king which is and always has been the NFL. Getting bumped for pre season!!! In Allen Iverson's words. Are we just talkin' about practice?
I think bigger losses are ahead for NASCAR in the very near future. Next year the majority of the races will be shown on FOX Sports 1 and NBCSN. This compared to the last 10 years where FOX put all it's races on it's major network channel and although the ABC portion was almost always telecast on ESPN the fact is ESPN is in much more homes than is NBCSN or FS1. Look for rating to sink next year and not because less people care about racing but just because less people will have the proper channels in their cable package as FSN1 and NBCSN are in the upper tier packages and many people like racing a bunch but not enough where their going to shell out $20-$30 more each month to have 20 races or so a year. I think it is odd that on the last contract bid ABC (ESPN) and Turner Sports (TNT and in the old days TBS & TNN) did not even put in a bid to retain NASCAR. NASCAR still came out way fine as the new contract is bigger than the existing one but that is because FOX and NBC each bid up a ton of money so they can air races on their cable sport channels to build those channels ratings which in turn are in a lot of less households than that of FOX, ABC, and even though it is cable ESPN which is in more package options and thus in many more homes than that of FS1 or NBCSN.
Sad to see the day for us diehards but NASCAR has truly lost a bit if ABC and Turner Sports did not even want to put in bids to retain the races. The ratings have been steadily declining over the last 5+ years and I think the next 10 years which is the length of the new contract with FOX and NBC starting in '15 has the potential to hurt ratings even further by just being in less homes and having much less exposure.
