NBCSN going away?

Later start times were justified by somewhere in the range of 7-8% better ratings, iirc. Besides college football (FOX has had a lot of success with noon kickoffs) and the NFL most nationally televised sporting events start mid afternoon or later on weekends. Some exceptions for sure, but not many.
 
Nitro Dude said:
:espnsux:
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Geez, it's been so long since ESPN had anything to do with current, active NASCAR racing, I'd completely forgotten that guy existed.

Although to be completely honest, I couldn't tell you the last time I looked at an ESPN network. Do they cover the first couple of days of a major golf tournament; maybe The Masters? Maybe that was it. If not, it may have been years.
 
I haven't watched ESPN Classic in many, many years. I'm surprised it held on this long. I don't even have that channel and I have almost everything available on DirecTV.
 
Nitro Dude said:
There was a time when Andy hated ESPN and he made sure on a daily basis that everyone knew it. :)
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ESPN's coverage from 2007-2009 was garbage. Especially in 2007.

I can't think of an era of television coverage that was worse than 2007-2009 and when we talk about NASCAR's decline which began in this era, I don't think Fox and ESPN get enough blame for their absolutely atrocious, unwatchable coverage. NASCAR on Fox chose to be a parody of itself (Digger, Darrell Waltrip becoming a caricature, goofy nicknames for everyone, buzzphrases for everything). It was like everything was a joke to them and the sport was just a redneck cartoon. They even replaced their iconic NASCAR on Fox theme with that goofy "boogity boogity boogity let's go racing boys" country song.

ESPN was all-around nightmare, between the boring broadcast booth, missed race starts, restarts and endings, races constantly moving from channel to channel, broadcasts just suddenly going off air without notice and not seeing the finish, and so on and so on. There's an entire section on the "NASCAR on ESPN" Wikipedia page devoted solely to all the times ESPN races abruptly switched channels, or went off air, or the start of the race wasn't broadcast, or SPEED Channel had to come in at the last minute and simulcast the race feed, and so on. Hell, there was an IndyCar race one time that jumped across three different networks in three hours (was supposed to start on ABC but started on ESPN2 because tennis went long, then moved to ABC, then concluded on ESPN). Danica Patrick's lone win was on a broadcast that was already dropkicked to ESPN Classic - I'll never forget laughing so hard when she won and ESPN was scrambling to cut out of whatever they were airing to show the Post Race Show on ESPN and ESPN2.

It was almost like these networks watched Talladega Nights, when they cut to commercial on the last lap, and decided that's what we wanted to see.

That era was so bad that, for a few years, TNT's broadcasts starring Bill "Now You Don't Have To Look It Up" Weber, Wally Dallenbach (still the most underrated commentator ever) and Kyle Petty were the gold standard. That "NASCAR on TNT LIVE" was a kick ass pre-race show though!
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
TNT's broadcasts starring Bill "Now You Don't Have To Look It Up" Weber, Wally Dallenbach (still the most underrated commentator ever) and Kyle Petty were the gold standard.
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I would happily watch that team again. Their six or eight races each season were too few for me.

That's the last pre-race show I thought was worth my time.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
ESPN's coverage from 2007-2009 was garbage. Especially in 2007.

I can't think of an era of television coverage that was worse than 2007-2009 and when we talk about NASCAR's decline which began in this era, I don't think Fox and ESPN get enough blame for their absolutely atrocious, unwatchable coverage. NASCAR on Fox chose to be a parody of itself (Digger, Darrell Waltrip becoming a caricature, goofy nicknames for everyone, buzzphrases for everything). It was like everything was a joke to them and the sport was just a redneck cartoon. They even replaced their iconic NASCAR on Fox theme with that goofy "boogity boogity boogity let's go racing boys" country song.

ESPN was all-around nightmare, between the boring broadcast booth, missed race starts, restarts and endings, races constantly moving from channel to channel, broadcasts just suddenly going off air without notice and not seeing the finish, and so on and so on. There's an entire section on the "NASCAR on ESPN" Wikipedia page devoted solely to all the times ESPN races abruptly switched channels, or went off air, or the start of the race wasn't broadcast, or SPEED Channel had to come in at the last minute and simulcast the race feed, and so on. Hell, there was an IndyCar race one time that jumped across three different networks in three hours (was supposed to start on ABC but started on ESPN2 because tennis went long, then moved to ABC, then concluded on ESPN). Danica Patrick's lone win was on a broadcast that was already dropkicked to ESPN Classic - I'll never forget laughing so hard when she won and ESPN was scrambling to cut out of whatever they were airing to show the Post Race Show on ESPN and ESPN2.

It was almost like these networks watched Talladega Nights, when they cut to commercial on the last lap, and decided that's what we wanted to see.

That era was so bad that, for a few years, TNT's broadcasts starring Bill "Now You Don't Have To Look It Up" Weber, Wally Dallenbach (still the most underrated commentator ever) and Kyle Petty were the gold standard. That "NASCAR on TNT LIVE" was a kick ass pre-race show though!
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You’re right. 2007 was bad. Marty was decent for the Nationwide Series, but had no business being a Cup announcer.

Bestwick, Jarrett, Petree was underrated.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
I would happily watch that team again. Their six or eight races each season were too few for me.

That's the last pre-race show I thought was worth my time.
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That booth was electric when Ralph Sheheen replaced Bill Weber, and TNT should’ve kept Ralph there.

I rewatched some of those old TNT Summer Series and NBC races on YouTube during the pandemic and Bill Weber was not as bad as I remembered, but he wasn’t great either.

Wally Dallenbach was really good and I wish he would return to the booth. I do take some satisfaction that, to my knowledge, he stepped out of broadcasting on his own terms though.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
That booth was electric when Ralph Sheheen replaced Bill Weber, and TNT should’ve kept Ralph there.

I rewatched some of those old TNT Summer Series and NBC races on YouTube during the pandemic and Bill Weber was not as bad as I remembered, but he wasn’t great either.

Wally Dallenbach was really good and I wish he would return to the booth. I do take some satisfaction that, to my knowledge, he stepped out of broadcasting on his own terms though.
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Wish Ralph would replace Rick Allen. *sigh*
 
AuzGrams said:
Wish Ralph would replace Rick Allen. *sigh*
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Ralph isn't without fault, but he's a real racing man through and through.

I think the current NBC racing producers would ruin anyone though. What those goofballs sound like is what they've been trained to do.
 
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gnomesayin said:
Ralph isn't without fault, but he's a real racing man through and through.

I think the current NBC racing producers would ruin anyone though.
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Idk I was never that big a fan of Rick Allen when he called trucks and was disappointed when he got the job. There are just so many better announcers out there.

Allen Bestwick, Ralph Sheheen and Bob Dillner would all be fantastic.
 
gnomesayin said:
Ralph isn't without fault, but he's a real racing man through and through.

I think the current NBC racing producers would ruin anyone though. What those goofballs sound like is what they've been trained to do.
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Yeah I think some people liked Rick with the Truck series.

PRAWBLEMS!!
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
ESPN's coverage from 2007-2009 was garbage. Especially in 2007.

I can't think of an era of television coverage that was worse than 2007-2009 and when we talk about NASCAR's decline which began in this era, I don't think Fox and ESPN get enough blame for their absolutely atrocious, unwatchable coverage. NASCAR on Fox chose to be a parody of itself (Digger, Darrell Waltrip becoming a caricature, goofy nicknames for everyone, buzzphrases for everything). It was like everything was a joke to them and the sport was just a redneck cartoon. They even replaced their iconic NASCAR on Fox theme with that goofy "boogity boogity boogity let's go racing boys" country song.

ESPN was all-around nightmare, between the boring broadcast booth, missed race starts, restarts and endings, races constantly moving from channel to channel, broadcasts just suddenly going off air without notice and not seeing the finish, and so on and so on. There's an entire section on the "NASCAR on ESPN" Wikipedia page devoted solely to all the times ESPN races abruptly switched channels, or went off air, or the start of the race wasn't broadcast, or SPEED Channel had to come in at the last minute and simulcast the race feed, and so on. Hell, there was an IndyCar race one time that jumped across three different networks in three hours (was supposed to start on ABC but started on ESPN2 because tennis went long, then moved to ABC, then concluded on ESPN). Danica Patrick's lone win was on a broadcast that was already dropkicked to ESPN Classic - I'll never forget laughing so hard when she won and ESPN was scrambling to cut out of whatever they were airing to show the Post Race Show on ESPN and ESPN2.

It was almost like these networks watched Talladega Nights, when they cut to commercial on the last lap, and decided that's what we wanted to see.

That era was so bad that, for a few years, TNT's broadcasts starring Bill "Now You Don't Have To Look It Up" Weber, Wally Dallenbach (still the most underrated commentator ever) and Kyle Petty were the gold standard. That "NASCAR on TNT LIVE" was a kick ass pre-race show though!
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I was just checking to see if you remembered. :)
 
Streaming just isn't as convenient as conventional cable. You have to keep track of all these apps and some of them are really slow to load. In the long run streaming isn't much cheaper if you have to pay for like 20 streaming services to get all the content you want. I don't understand how FOX and ESPN have 2 sports channels but NBC doesn't even have one.
 
Marcingak said:
Streaming just isn't as convenient as conventional cable. You have to keep track of all these apps and some of them are really slow to load. In the long run streaming isn't much cheaper if you have to pay for like 20 streaming services to get all the content you want. I don't understand how FOX and ESPN have 2 sports channels but NBC doesn't even have one.
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By me ESPN has 4 channels.
 
Marcingak said:
Streaming just isn't as convenient as conventional cable. You have to keep track of all these apps and some of them are really slow to load. In the long run streaming isn't much cheaper if you have to pay for like 20 streaming services to get all the content you want. I don't understand how FOX and ESPN have 2 sports channels but NBC doesn't even have one.
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100%
 
jws926 said:
It was a 10 million difference, USA 90.4MIL, NBCSN 79.87MIL
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Not sure what you're looking at, but the article clearly states "USA Network, which was in nearly 87 million homes two years ago, is now in 78.89 million — only slightly more than the now-defunct NBCSN (78.56M)."
 
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