The Chase was great the last two years. It sucked this year.
NASCAR is like the NFL now.
NFL, there are two teams dominating everything, the Patriots and the Colts. If you're going to watch a game, you're stuck with a local team, the Patriots and the Colts.
NASCAR: Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. Same thing.
NFL: I don't watch much football because all we get are NE, IND, the Redskins and the Steelers. Those are our
4 games each week.
I only like Washington because they're the only team I watch play every week. I can't see any of the Miami games. The ONE Jacksonville game I got to see, CBS (locally) cut off before the game winning touchdown.
There you go, I don't like the NFL because I have to have DirecTV and a $300 package to watch my favorite team.
NASCAR: Jimmie and Jeff won every race. It's boring as hell when the same guy somehow wins every race. It's even worse when NASCAR seemingly gives wins away.
On top of that, there's ESPN. One race, every time I tuned over to the race (Texas), they had a spit screen with Jimmie and Jeff. That's all they talked about all race long was Jimmie and Jeff even though Juan Pablo was leading. There wasn't any friggin' mention of why Harvick was in 20th after a 6th place starting spot, or something like that. There was no mention of JPM leading ... NOTHING! ESPN was the effing Jeff and Jimmie show.
Why should I watch the race?
Brian should know this, people hate dynasties. The media, and only the media, likes dynasties (New England, Boston Red Sox, Jimmie Johnson). It's a story for them to pump up. Say what you want, NASCAR and ESPN WANTED Jimmie to win 5 straight so they could yap away about dynasty.
(yawn)
And, when a driver doesn't do anything to deserve a win, and just has it thrown at him because of a bull-s debris caution in the middle of pit stops, I don't like that either.
Furthermore, how many times this season did ESPN not know what was going on?
Remember when Robby threw something out the window. NBC confronted him about it. If there's controversey (or anything really), NBC covered it.
Did anybody watch Kansas, part 2 (ESPN2)?
They had NO CLUE what was going on. Between Rusty and Andy saying Tony was fine and he shouldn't be worried about the smoke on the tire (BTW, the tire exploded and he wrecked) and them not even mentioning the controversey at the finish.
That was a great (and historic) race. But ESPN2's coverage was downright AWFUL. Even after Jimmie mentioned that Clint should've won, they had no mention of it afterwards.
SPEED, on the other hand, was all over the controversey.
Guys, this was an all season thing with ESPN. They suck. They're awful. The producers know nothing about the sport. The pit road analysts (minus Allen) have no clue. Jamie Little is terrible. Suzy Kolber is punishment to us.
The Chase, COT, those are small factors.
EVERY editorial states ESPN as one of the three biggest problems in the sport right now. That's a huge problem.
NBC's falling apart, their ratings have tanked fast. Racing will never be on NBC again. They won't have football long. NBC won't be around much longer because Jeff Zucker ruined NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Sci-Fi. When everybody goes to cable in 2009, NBC's gone like a fart in the wind.
TNT, on the other hand, is the top rated cable network. Races being on ABC or TNT? In 2009, TNT will reach as many people as ABC (and we wouldn't have to worry about channels not covering the race at all).
What I'm saying is that NASCAR needs to say to ESPN: Shape up or we're going to TNT.
On the subject of cable: Daytona's on cable now. Indianapolis is on cable. All the road course races are on cable.
A product is unable to expand that way (until the 2009 standard). These are races that have been on ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC for a decade. Now, they're tossed to the back burner on ESPN and ESPN Classic. Not good.
If ESPN doesn't change, NASCAR should go to TNT (who'd put a lot in to NASCAR coverage). That's the bottom line.
), Patriots, whatever the NBC and ESPN games are.
