Bill Weber is terrible also. He got suspended then permanently retired by TNT after a blowup and abusive behavior in a hotel lobby at a NH race. He has been considered an ******* in general by many.
Bill Weber was not as bad as people remember. Not saying he's great, and Wally Dallenbach definitely carried NBC in 2006 and TNT in the years after, but Weber is better than you remember. Regardless of whether he was a pompous ass or not.
My list was facetious though. I'm really not a fan of NBC's current product, which is a shame because their coverage from 2001-2006 was really good and their coverage early on in their return was pretty damn good and their IndyCar coverage is the gold standard of motorsports coverage, IMO.
Unfortunately, when the racing sucks, there's not much you can do. When the racing is garbage, like it is most weeks in the NASCAR Cup Series, you're relying so much on narrating a story or something to keep people engaged - as Bill Weber often did and Rick Allen often does.
I've been announcing at racetracks for the better part of the last decade. It ain't easy. Getting a name wrong, as Marty Reid, or making a mental slip up is REALLY easy to do. You can have all the notes and stats and everything you want in front of you but, ultimately, you're relying so much on what's at the top of your head right this second. It's a VERY stressful job, especially when you have TV in the equation, which I've done a few where TV cameras were involved at three different racetracks.
It's so easy for people to get on Twitter and on forums like this and that ****hole Reddit and criticize the announcers for a mistake here or there, or even for multiple mistakes, but you just don't know how hard it is until you're there. That's why Mike Joy, Bob Jenkins, Allen Bestwick and Bob Varsha are elite, they don't make many mistakes like Marty Reid, who was otherwise very eccentric and entertaining, and they aren't scripted like Bill Weber was and Rick Allen seems to be.
Even the greatest of all time, Ken Squier, was skipping a few beats in his final years - especially on those atrocious TBS broadcasts in the mid to late-90s.
As for NBC now, IMO they have a deep pool they could draw from. Ralph Sheheen has done PxP for TNT and those races were a blast to watch with him in the booth. Dave Burns has called races for NBCSN, USA and ESPN. Brian Till has called races in multiple disciplines for NBC and Fox. Leigh Diffey is just the man. And Allen Bestwick is shamefully not in any NASCAR broadcast booth right now. ESPN realized their mistake five years in and promoted him to the booth and their coverage improved exponentially as a result.
Any one of these would be an improvement, but I'm not sure Rick Allen is the problem. The racing sucks and that's the biggest problem, and they're trying to overcompensate for that in the booth, IMO.
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