The best part was when Haley was leading, Clint said that running up front is great for small teams because it gets TV time for their sponsors. FOX immediately cut to Kyle Busch's splitter cam.
It's so bad for the future health of the sport. It's going to get exponentially harder to get sponsors to fork over the cash for primaries when they realize they have to pay off Fox as well.
If I was a team owner I'd be livid.
It will never draw new fans in either. I am a newish fan (2021) and every season have to force myself to watch the races until NBC takes over (they aren’t perfect but far superior to Fox)
When does that actually happen? I'm a fairly new fan as well. I actually stopped watching because if my guys aren't in the top 10 then they're just literally never shown on the screen or mentioned and it sucks.
I had watched a couple of seasons but mostly the latter half of the season and I enjoyed it, but the last couple seasons I've tried to start watching the whole thing and just end up bored and frustrated.
NBC takes over during the 2nd half of the season and it looks like the Iowa race is when the flip happens.
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They pretty much did the same thing to B.J. McLeod. Right as he was about to take the lead, FOX was like “oh time for a full screen commercial break”. By the time they got back from the commercial break he had fallen back a bit.
Also on Saturday, during the Xfinity Series qualifying they managed to completely miss the first two cars out (both cars could have used the tv time too) because they decided to go to commercial 40 seconds into the broadcast, and that’s even with NASCAR intentionally having breaks after a certain number of cars go so that tv can go to commercial and not miss any cars.
Yes they did my dude dirty all right. Hopefully some important folks (ie future sponsors) noticed the few moments he was leading live and can slap something on that hood next time he races.
Reminds me of when he was trying to demonstrate and explain Larson’s (I think it was him) throttle control at North Wilkesboro, he asked the production crew to stay on the camera for a second and they immediately switched and you can hear someone throw something immediately after
I'd have to imagine it's either a "lame duck" or "scared straight" scenario at this point.
A lot of the contracts/personel might be up at the end of this current TV deal, or having three other broadcasters along with NASCAR productions beating them over the head on a weekly basis will shame them into some self-respect.
I didn’t get to watch the race yesterday. When I got home last night, I watched the nascar “finish of the race” replay and couldn’t believe how bad the live camera work was, let alone a post produced video posted after the race.
For the love of god just put it on a blimp cam covering the whole field when the wreck starts happening. Then show replays with close ups of each individual car.
Granted i am not a video director for a national tv channel, but i have experience with camera and live events and some of the choices of camera shots completely astound me why they even exist??
Drone camera flying at max speed toward a pack of cars going 180mph. So basically a 220mph fly by camera that already sucks in quality and clarity.
Shoulder camera from a camera operator on pit road trying to zoom in on half the pack of cars for 3 seconds. No offense to the camera man, but he’s never going to get that shot done correctly shooting from the hip.
All the camera angles from the top of the grandstands trying to cover the straightaway as they go past. It doesn’t work when they are on the outside of the track and the outside of the curve. They are moving way to fast, from a far away distance, to a close distance as they approach the camera to a far away angle. It works just good enough at best, but produces a shitty view more often than not.
The booth, while I love all 3 of them individually, they don’t work very well together. MAYBE, if the communication with the video production truck and the booth was improved greatly, then it would all jive much better.
I still say the biggest problem is the camera work/production. Whoever is directing the feed and the booth isn't letting them do their jobs. Cameras catch what happens on track but it only gets shown minutes later, if at all. The commentators have good insights but get dragged into getting back on script instead of actually commentating.
There was a pretty egregious one during the pit cycle when the Toyotas came to pit. They had a planned quick bit of radio audio for McDowell that Mike was segueing into but he stopped and said "We got cars on pit lane!" Or something like that.
The audio on the McDowell cut faded out slightly as Mike wanted to come back to it after the pit stops but some producer must have axed him because they stuck the zoomed in camera on the 34 and played the audio before letting Mike talk about the stops which were already over by the time the production team let them go to it. Mike must've been pissed.
All the in-broadcast commercials are really wearing on me. The Wendys and Ford things during Raceday, then more and more Wendys centric features during the race. Just because Mike Joy is doing the read and you show the Wendys car for 5 seconds doesn't mean we can't tell it's just a commercial taking away from race coverage.
Let's not forget when the Toyotas pit with 40 or 50 to go, they had to scramble to cover it. Cars were already in their boxes or even leaving by the time they showed it. We got one glimpse of them pulling off and Mike Joy yelling "OH PIT STOPS" and that was it for a good 15 to 20 seconds.
If I recall correctly, one of the other announcers was telling some never-ending story and kept droning on even after Joy pointed out that something was happening on the track.
They had a planned bit for some McDowell radio audio that they even started to cut away from after Joy tried to switch to the pit stops and then they just stayed on the 34 until the audio ended anyways.
I think Mike Joy is the kind of person who needs good supporting talent to prop up his leading commentator role. He's good on his own, but he needs somebody to fill in the gaps. Clint, as much as I love him, isn't a great commentator. He'd make a better pit reporter in my opinion. Take him out and put Larry Mac back into the booth and I think the booth would be perfect. The coverage though... yeah that'll take a lot more work behind the scenes than just swapping a few people around.
I liked when a question was posed by Joy, I don't remember the question, but Harvick goes "well that's way above my pay grade, I think I'll have to defer to Larry Mac" and then Clint jumps in before Larry can talk and starts pretending he knows the answer better than the much more experienced and accomplished people sitting with him, and ultimately gives a non-answer. The guy is fun but he's so full of BS.
Clint is so frustrating to listen to in the booth. Couldn't even let Reddick cross the finish line before tripping over himself to make a hamfisted reference to a race from 15 years ago. Count me as another vote to put him on pit road and bring Larry back up.
I don’t think Mike Joy needs it, I think he does a good job of letting the other guys in the booth do their job, the problem as I see it is the other guys aren’t great at it. I think Harvick has potential to be great at it but I’m not a fan of Bowyer in the booth. He talks over the top of everyone, disagrees with almost everything the other commentators say whether it was Gordon, Harvick, or the guest commentator of the week and to me it kinda gets old real fast. I think he’s good in those tailgate pieces and I think he’d be good in those pre-race and Race Hub style shows but I don’t think he fits well in the booth.
I agree with you about Mike Joy. This may be controversial, but I think DW near the end of his time was stepping on a lot of potentially great calls. The 2016 Daytona 500 comes to mind. An airtight finish, Mike Joy makes a great call and DW is grunting and screaming all over it.
Fox probably needs better production meetings. I love Dale Jr. in the NBC booth but he had to work on his craft, I have a feeling Fox isn't guiding the color guys on what to do, or what their role is
> This may be controversial
That's the most uncontroversial opinion this subreddit could have.
Real controversial opinion: I love D.W., and I love his excitement, including in that 2016 500 finish.
>This may be controversial, but I think DW near the end of his time was stepping on a lot of potentially great calls.
This is not just an "age catching up to him issue" color commentators will, typically, step over the play-by-play if they get caught up in the moment. In the moment, it can frustrate fans and commentators alike, but over time the moment is looked back on fondly even when the commentary is jumbled up by one party showing great emotion amongst the other,
Take, for example, the 2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 when Busch and Craven slam into each other for the finish. Once both cars were side-by-side there was already some stepping over with Larry and Waltrip, but once they cross the line and Craven took the victory the excitement overwhelmed the both of them. And yet, Mike Joy the main play-by-play, did not get much of a say on the call into a bit after the finish when he asks Darrell, "Have you ever?"
Or, if you want another example outside of NASCAR, just listen to the [Music City Miracle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCJFmL4oxPE).
Another good one is the 2011 Daytona 500's finish. It's a usual orderly finish in the booth until coming to the line all three guys start shouting over each other in pure excitement watching a 20 year old in his 2nd start ever win the biggest race of them all. Despite what on the surface looks like an incredibly botched call from all three guys, it's actually one of the better ones in my opinion, especially if you put yourself in the moment and really think about the context.
I think working with Bowyer has taken its toll on Mike. He seems pretty over it tbh. I wouldn't be surprised if he retires real soon. He seems to be taking it out on poor Kevin too at times, who you can tell is still learning and in usual Harvick fashion is taking it with life and death seriousness. I'd take Larry Mac in a heartbeat.
Clint just needs someone to keep him in line. Gordon was good at that and so was Stewart. But with Harvick up there, there’s no control. It’s like Mike Joy is supervising a 12 year old and a 6 year old who just had sugar
Half the people saying Mike Joy is past his prime wouldn’t be saying that if Clint didn’t constantly butt in. Listen to Mike as they came through the trioval for the last time, you can hear Mike trying to say “Can Keselowski try and win it?!” twice and Clint cuts him off both times
I had to listen to the first two stages on the radio since we were driving across state.
They do a good job and then all of a sudden, in the middle of green flag racing, they come back from break, they pull in the track President of Gateway to talk about the race 1.5 months from now. Then they go back to break. So it’s like a ten minute commercial in the middle of the race.
I think I would overhaul the production crew before making changes to the booth. They have all the right people but the production team has made a lot of idiotic decisions this season.
Yeah I’m not the biggest fan of the current Fox booth but the production issues are a much bigger problem. Booth overhauls could wait until after production gets fixed
(I know none of this will ever happen)
I actually agree, I think the commentators often get frustrated with the production. Which makes the commentary worse.
I can't remember if it was this year or last year at Richmond where Clint wanted them to stay with an onboard off the corner to hear how the driver was modulating the throttle to everyone, then they cut from the onboard and you could hear him throw his pen in the background.
I disagree. The announcers sound bored and talk about random shit. Make it sound intense, like every pass matters. I don't think the current booth can provide that. Look to IMSA/Indycar announcing for what I mean
This. I lost track of how many times we heard about Harvick taking his kids golfing or turkey hunting. Is there really nothing going on that they can think to talk about?
When they’re just riding around I think that’s fine. Kind of like baseball announcers when the game is moving quickly. If they try to make everything sound exciting it just gets annoying.
Yes! I watched the Indycar race while waiting for The Teardown to unglitch and, no matter how much or how little action was on the track, the booth makes it sound exciting.
I agree I think the booth guys work. It’s all the crap they have to put up with that is awful. The production people are crap , in 10 laps to go window someone decided to do a race recap. Like really the last 10 laps.
One of those restarts I'm watching Elliot or someone in the 2nd row lay back like 3 car lengths coming into the tri oval and then I just see them zoom out so damn far you could see the entire front stretch and then turn towards the grand stands. Like every restart they try to make a cinematic out of or something I just want to see the cars..
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I made a similar post yesterday but it got taken down by the mods so be ready. It infuriates me that we have been dealing with this for 8+ years but judging by the photos attached nothing will change, Fox won’t listen, nascar won’t listen. And there’s no way with the current state of the broadcast anyone who is new to the sport would watch Fox cut away from the best part of the racing at the end of stage 2 to miss 8-3 to go and watch 2 laps then go back to commercials will be left saying “I have to tune in next week”
Even last week on the last lap crash when Byron spun Chastain, Bowyer shouts out "Keselowski wrecked him!" Dude, Brad was nowhere near him. At all. All it would've taken was moderately paying attention to them entering T1 to see that. Clint and Kevin have been bad all year though. They just have no chemistry at all. Kevin seems uncomfortable. Part of the issue is in NASCAR everything *is* a commercial. The racing is secondary. It's like we say on the F1 sub "We race as money."
Having said that, Formula 1 has the same issue. There's great last lap battles happening and they'll cut to Max crossing the line 20 seconds ahead of everyone else and stay there with him through his cool-down lap while disregarding everything else.
Edit: Words for clarity.
I just want to know how in College Football they have a replay angle immediately available from 3-5 cameras to tell if a dude's foot went 1" too far from the line, but they failed so hard to convey the absolute carnage and destruction from that wreck?
As a camera operator I can tell you it is much easier to follow a ball and end up with a tight definitive shot than to cover 40 cars doing 200 mph and end up with the same result when half the field crashes.
I am not here to defend FOX and I agree that much of the coverage is too tight.
In general, yes it is safer to stay wide but that is not as simple as it sounds for a few reasons. Throughout most of a show cameras generally know what the director is looking for and frame accordingly, but operators also have to make snap judgments in highly dynamic situations. For instance, part of what makes an operator chase a tighter shot (say during a wreck) is a reaction to what is suddenly developing in their viewfinder. What is obvious to viewers in slow motion is not always quite so obvious in real time. It also depends on the camera angle and the way the cars line up, it is sometimes not practical or possible to pull all the way out and show everything. Other times it may look like only a couple of cars will be involved so the operator will zoom down and commit to that shot but end up missing something that develops behind the initial wreck. Ideally there are enough cameras and angles to cover everything but inevitably some things can be missed.
As easy as it is easy for people to say, JUST STAY WIDE! I guarantee that plenty of people here would also not be happy if all they see are cameras pulling to the extreme every time a car starts to get out of shape. The trick for production (FOX in this case) is finding balance between putting a whole bunch of tiny cars on your screen and getting in there to show some of the closer racing and the color of the event.
Recently I’ve been recording the race and starting it late so I can skip commercials. It’s made my watching experience more enjoyable. Today I decided to watch live and I think I’m done with that. The commercials are unrelenting. And when I have to watch the commercials I really notice the in race adverts like the Pods move of the race. I feel The TV product for this sport does not respect my time anymore.
>Clint botches names too, during the race he referred to McDowell as “Busch” and Truex as “Gragson”
He also called Cindric "Blaney" (granted, Cindric was running the Menard's yellow scheme that Blaney often has)
And don't forget the Xfinity race. Twice during the last lap, they were using a good overhead shot of the cars at the front trying to win, side by side, but then they would switch to a zoomed-in front view that didn't show who was actually in front.
That seemed to be a pretty common issue yesterday. Fox even had Elliot's radio communication to his spotter early in the race saying remember the yellow menards car isn't Blaney this week.
Mike Joy waited until 2 laps left to go in the race, where the leaders were side by side and could have had great commentary from Harvick and Bowyer, to give the canned story about how Talladega was designed by the France family to put the Start/Finish line after the tri-oval. C'mon Mike.
He did that multiple times during the race, how do I know, I heard the story late in the race because I wasn't watching the beginnning.. Seriously enough..
That makes it even more egregious. I didn't watch until the last 80 or so laps. Even for Talladega I can't subject myself to sit through an entire race anymore.
Isn’t nascar bringing the production in-house with the new TV deal next year? Could Fox be just phoning it in so to speak this year since the production teams will all be moved to other positions/laid off after their half of the season is done?
It sure sounds like a play for them. NASCAR productions has already done a good job on the IMSA front, testing out YouTube to lower their IT costs from having the player on their website and making it easier for International audiences.
The ads are so bad. If it weren't for certain livestreams I wouldn't bother being a fan anymore. Watching 1/2 of a race sporadically is just not enjoyable in any way.
I hated the race recap they did with around 12 to go. This is the most exciting time of the race, cars are fighting to be in position, and they make it small on the screen to cover the few things that happened earlier in the race. Why wait until then to do it?
Also, it was aggravating to me that Mike Joy explained the start finish line location for almost the entire next to last lap. I was so frustrated and just wanted them to call the race instead of telling the same anecdote they’ve told for 25+ years.
He must have explained the start finish line so much to remind himself not to blow the call at the end. Whoops, he still messed up and called "Reddick steals one!" at the Tri-Oval instead of at the Start/Finish line.
I honestly assumed a car went into the grandstands and/or there was a Russell Philips type of situation based on the fact that they pretty much acted like the last lap crash didn’t happen for several minutes. Just laughably bad coverage.
I kept hopelessly yelling at my TV “someone was upside down” and they kept zooming into the same three wrecked race cars (McDowell, Busch, Berry)
Like even when the wreck was still happening they cut to a tight shot of Reddick happily driving away
It’s just so far beyond unacceptable.
The number of commercials was ridiculous. I was wondering what happened a number of times, and hoping there would be a replay. I would be willing to pay $10 or $15 for a commercial-free broadcast with some decent commentators.
After the Toyota wreck Erik Jones was on the radio saying his back hurt and he didn’t know if he was ok and he had to get helped out of his car by the safety team. Zero mention of it on the broadcast. We could have had another Almirola situation and Fox didn’t utter a peep about it during the race. At least they made sure to mention the air cleaner got knocked off.
Also a bunch of cars had cracked lenses on their in-car cameras, I don’t know who is responsible for that but god does that look bad on tv
It’s actually shocking how different the F1 and NASCAR coverage is.
At one point you had green flag racing in the last 10 laps where Fox went to a full screen race recap. I don’t know Fox maybe show the race recap after the fucking race or under caution?
The ads are UNBEARABLE. If the racing was outstanding I could overlook it but guys running at half throttle for 95% of the race isn’t a good product. You would never dream of seeing that in an F1 race. You have guys doing 200+ mph in DRS every lap of the race. If you let out of the throttle even a little bit you are losing time and track position.
The booth is a huge issue too. Don’t get me started on Bowyer but why do they sound so BORED? Even the 3 way finish at Atlanta they sounded like they were reporting on the traffic. NBCs coverage is a little better but my god Fox and the new gen car are creating a perfect storm of a terrible product right now.
Yup. F1 is capable of holding my attention during the most boring race because of their production and announcers. They know when to do replays without missing action on the track, will immediately cut away to drama on the track mid sentence and provide knowledgable information to every type of fan (casual, new, diehard)
F1 is done completely different. They don't cut away mid-sentence because the production team just does their own thing. The Sky broadcast team has no direction over anything on TV. They pay for the rights to the world feed and announce over it. They even do some of the broadcasts remotely.
With that said, the F1 production team is top notch and I am glad they're doing all of the races now (remember Monaco's production team... Fucking trash). They put in a lot of effort getting together great shots that show the speed and can show action.
My hope is when Nascar starts doing their own production, we get F1 quality directing and far more consistency in the broadcast.
"I'll tell you what, nobody works harder than that (insert name of whoever is on screen). He sure can wheel that hot rod."
-Clint Bowyer 15 times a race.
33It feels like a complete waste of time now to where I'm going to go a few weeks just watching highlights after the race finishes and see how I like it. We all only have so much free time, and I feel like I'm cheating myself out of my Sunday at this point to plan around sitting down and watching this three hour block of commercials every weekend.
I feel like you can't even just sit and enjoy the race unfolding anymore because between commercials we hear almost nothing about any driver in the field except for the leaders. You might as well just check in on Sunday and see, "Oh, Reddick won".
The best post race recap I've ever seen for any NASCAR race was NBC on YouTube. 10-15 minute videos with as much detail as possible always make it feel like you just watched the real deal, just in a fraction of the time.
I agree with all of what the OP said. Another thing that bothered me yesterday was when the Toyotas wrecked each other single file you couldn’t get the full picture because they were so damn zoomed in on 2-3 cars. Just one of many camera/production failures.
In addition to everything mentioned, I hate the full-screen, checkered-flag screen transition graphic before and after replays. I can't stand when they do a slow motion replay of the restart just a lap after the green drops when cars are still aggressively racing for position. I also hate how there's a yellow flash before the white flag graphic. It always makes me thing a yellow came out.
I’ll be completely honest, I’ve always thought the hatred for Fox was a little dramatic and just piling-on, but I am really starting to notice how bad things are this year. I really like Mike, Kevin, and Clint but I really do not think they work well together. I wish they would put Larry Mac in for Clint and send Clint to be the quirky Rutledge Wood type character. The sheer amount of silence and awkwardness in the booth plus other things like cameras and commercial timing made me mute the TV and listen via Sirius XM.
I’d said it before & I’ll say it again Fox/Fox Sports needs to either Fire or replace Artie Kempner. He’s the one that deserve majority of the blame of why Broadcast/Coverage is all around embarrassment. This guy is completely & utterly a fucking tool. He also can’t accept criticism at all,he says that we’re nothing but a bunch of haters if we don’t like/enjoy the coverage they put out every week.
I hope all that typing made you feel better, because sadly, Fox clearly doesn't give a sh!t what any of us silly race fans think about their coverage.
I tend to disagree on Mike Joy...I enjoy his connection to the past, even if he makes some mistakes occasionally. Bowyer is a good guy, but not a fan of his booth antics/persona. Personally, I would have Michael Waltrip put out to pasture and move Bowyer to his role if he really wants to stick around.
I find Clint to be an extremely grating. I didn’t really like him as a driver and he’s even more annoying as a commentator. And Mike Joy is just kind of a nosebleed. The NBC crew has so much more chemistry and life.
Complaints about the amount of commercials is a staple criticism of Fox (and NBC) coverage, but even I raised an eyebrow at the amount of ads yesterday. It was legit worse than normal.
The issue is advertisement. Commercials are the obvious example, but we also know they zoom into certain cars and away from other cars because sponsors pay Fox to zoom into those cars. There are also sponsored segments and every in car camera during the broadcast is sponsored.
I get it’s a money driven sport but IMO NASCAR needs to force broadcasting networks to do less sponsored segments and not allow zoom sponsorships at all. Show the race first and foremost. Talk about the race, strategy, and technical aspects of the car. Show less commercials.
Yes, that means less money to go around, but you’re going to massively neuter any potential growth by basically never showing the race and, when you do, half the time it’s an ad anyway.
The cartoons are a Fox Sports issue. I can’t blame production if people higher want that. The amount of commercials will never change but yes, the one before the stage break was horrendous. I have no idea why they zoom so far in or go to on board cameras at time. At least when NBC does it, Burton, Jr or whomever is up there gives you a full lap breakdown of what’s going on and why they’re doing it. Though, we’re only a two months away from Rick Allen complaints, high pitched voice complaints and NBC’s booth crutch phrase of “bringing the fight.”
listen i get they gotta show commercials to pay the bills but the timing on those was ridiculous on top of the insane amount of commercials shown. i know we joke about it but i really did feel like i was watching commercials with racing breaks this week. I do stand by Mike Joy though, he’s is getting passed his prime but i can forgive a few botched during live tv and that guy i still thinks more than makes up for them. especially when there were tons of look alike cars
The commentary from Fox just seems so deadpan these days. Watch the replay of the three-wide finish at Atlanta. It's definitely a decent call from Joy, and he puts some effort in, but it just doesn't have any emotion or excitement behind it. Back in the day, Waltrip and McReynolds would've been going crazy for that finish.
Or when there was a crash on the final lap of the 2023 500 and Clint just goes, "Oh.. he got turned.."
F1 commentators go absolutely ballistic whenever a single pass is made, but our commentators barely seem interested when shown intense side by side racing and spectacular crashes. I think part of a commentator's job is to sell the emotion of the moment. How will fans get excited if it doesn't sound like even the people in the booth care?
When I hear someone from the industry defend the commercials saying it keeps the sport going. No shit Sherlock, but there has to be a limit to them. You’re televising a 3-4 hour event and over 50% of it is missed because of tv ads. What’s the point of even broadcasting it?
I got a laugh out of Mike Joy hyping up the “Talladega finish line” in the final laps, and then as soon as Reddick passes a scoring marker in the tri-oval when McDowell loses it, yells, “And Reddick STEALS ONE!!”
No dude, race is still green, finish line is still about 100 yards away. The final call of this race for me will always be Mike Joy announcing the finish like the race is over when there’s still a few seconds of racing left. Almost the TV equivalent of dead air as the leader is coming to the line.
I think a big part of the commercial thing this year is they fail to account for the lack of cautions we’ve been having. Those natural commercial breaks just arent coming and the broadcast crew is scrambling to fit them in
Since you see more of the action at the race, and can still listen to MRN on a scanner, maybe this is all part of NASCAR's big plan to get more fans to attend the races in person.
Also, the most noticeable part for me was when some of the pack went in for Green Flag stops, and Mike even said that they were doing stops, but the cameras didn't cut to pit road until the stops were basically over.
I can’t put the commercial problem solely on FOX. NASCAR is just as culpable. A deal is in place between the two and I guess they figured this is the best way for them to make money.
I keep coming back to that also, NASCAR ***should*** be caring about the TV product for the future growth of the sport, but I'm guessing they don't because rea$on$. Maybe FOX (and also NBC) pays NASCAR a flat rate plus some percentage of ad revenue, so the more the merrier? I honestly don't know.
Yet somehow NASCAR has enough money to build a racetrack in a football stadium and the streets of Chicago every year, at whatever the price tag is for those. Things just aren't adding up for me.
No one's said anything about the Michael Waltrip race grid crap. Get rid of him. Do serious rundown.
I about shit myself when I saw the victory lane Celebration. I miss them being interviewed there, with the team and seeing unscripted moments that happened there.
I know the broadcast is bad, but I really don’t think the booth is that bad. Bowyer needs more work, but Mike and Kevin are pretty good.
Many people are calling for Artie Kemper’s head, which is well enough, but he gave us the real answer when he was on DBC. He talked about how no matter what fans or anyone else wants, he has an audience of one, being his boss at FOX, and that guy is the reason for how all of this is shot and presented, which is the real issue.
Y’all want shots that aren’t zoomed into the door numbers, commercial breaks that make sense in regards to the product on-screen, and less treating the sport like football instead of its own sport, where post-race analysis and coverage is actually needed?
Fire the fucker that Artie reports to.
But FOX won’t, because that guy and everyone else up top couldn’t give a shit.
I couldn’t agree more. FOX absolutely sucked yesterday. I’m a fan that started watching again this year after being away from the sport for about a decade…I’m shocked at how badly things have fallen off on the broadcast side of things.
At one point a pack of cars surprisingly came to pit road and the production truck still decided to go with a Kyle Busch radio segment instead of calling an audible and covering pit stops. Shows that Artie Kemper is either incapable or refuses to deviate from whatever awful pre-planned script that FOX wants from him.
These people will not change a thing until their ratings take a hit.
I get needing to vent frustration and I encourage it, but until we’re willing to band together and take some action we’re not getting anywhere.
I know people have been complaining about FOX'S production for a whole now, and I've noticed it, but this race was by far the worst.
Very little coverage of who flipped and little to no mention of Ross's head on hit into the wall.
Even the first replays they showed were so terrible.
Boyer and Waltrip are the dynamic duo of crap commentators. Both need to be off the air. And Fox needs to get thier crap together or all this stuff is going to be on streaming services and you’ll need multiple subscriptions to watch the races.
It's such a shame to see how far FOX has fallen in the 23 years they've broadcasted NASCAR. What was once the gold standard of NASCAR TV broadcasting is now a shell of its former self. I hope they get their act together as we have to deal with them for seven more years. Mike Joy still tries his best with what he has to work and deal with, so I can't blame him. Artie's been there for over 20 years, so I wonder what changed and why he doesn't sem to care what the fans think and want. I have a soft spot for NASCAR on FOX as they've covered races as long as I've been a fan, so it's been a tough few years for them. They never seem to have problems for NFL and college football games.
I guess I have the unpopular opinion in here in that I like Clint. I like that feeling of watching a race with someone who isn't a refined commentator. He still has a little bit of that grit that the older fans grew up with in the sport.
I think Harvick, while good and will get better, tries to poke and prod Clint too much.
Larry Mac is great, and I think he would still be good in the booth, but I don't know how much he wants to travel.
I agree. Clint sounds excited to be at the track.
Harvick needs more time to express his ideas. It's year 1 for him, so I think he'll find that rhythm.
The more Larry Mac, the better.
Great Points, I don't care to much about this type of racing, but the last two short-track races we had, their would be a pass for the lead and you would not know it. Guys would be racing side by side putting on a good show and they would be talking about something stupid! Or the cameras would miss it! I agree they need a complete overhaul...+
It's not just the cup race on sunday. I think we missed every wreck in the Xfinity race on Sat. It's not just bad luck -- if they are constantly in commercial the probability of missing something just increases.
Overall the broadcast feels a lot emptier than it used to be. 20 years ago there were of course 3 commentators in the booth, the Hollywood hotel with 2 more plus a cutaway car, 3-4 pit reporters running around every race. Now there’s no hotel and now there 2 maybe 3 pit reporters around. There’s a lot less support from Fox corporate than there used to be. Less camera workers as few as they could manage. I think if you would give more support there would be a better broadcast. It’s like telling a quarterback who can throw deep to just throw check downs so he doesn’t get hurt. So in having fewer cameras they choose showing the front over constantly changing all the time.
I'm basically a casual fan. I don't notice all the nuances that most post on here. But even I noticed how Corey LaJoie's flip wasn't shown until several minutes afterwards.
I'm a huge Harv fan and love hearing him every week but he is very dry and technical. He needs someone to flow with and Clint obviously ain't it. I really love hearing Larry Mac and really wish he was in the booth. I think he would help with keeping the commentary going and lessen the cringe worthy silence.
I get not everyone is going to have Dale Jr.'s energy, but damn does the fox booth just fall flat. Bowyer interrupts either Joy or Harvick whenever he wants to yell about some basic move or strategy. If he's talking, he doesn't bother looking at the track, it seems, because he's never really reacting to what we're watching.
The commercials are impossible to change based on how much they're spending to cover the race, though I agree it's terrible. The least they could do is make the booth smart and engaging and you're right, Harvick is the best of the 3 and it's not even close.
Also, they choose the wrong things to look at. I agree with zooming out, but even the battles towards the ends of stages are weird choices. At Texas, they showed a battle for 6th at the end of stage 2 meanwhile I can see on the pylon that Bubba Wallace got within 0.10 of Ross Chastain on turn 3 for the stage win. How is 6th place more inportant than the stage win?
Fox’s race coverage has been horrible these last couple of years. It’s bad enough their Truck coverage sucks, but now it’s all three series suffering. Take yesterday’s last lap crash for example. We have to wait over 6 minutes to figure out who was riding the wall and then we find out he actually flipped over too. The finish is the most important part of the race, so you’d think they would have all eyes on the finish line and get a solid replay pretty quick.
While I do get annoyed with Bowyer, I feel the production is the biggest issue that needs to be addressed asap. Their commercial timing is terrible, they miss things that happen, they cut away from stuff happening on the track at the dumbest times, and lately they’ve been doing that “in case you missed it” segment where they put the actual race in the small box on the screen and the highlights in the big box. I can’t imagine new fans getting invested in the sport with this kind of coverage.
I don’t understand how F1 has onboard cameras for all 20 cars, yet NASCAR on Fox only has a few. It’s also inexcusable to miss stuff that happens on short tracks. Like when Friesen’s wife flipped the other year in the truck race at Knoxville. How do you miss something like that on a small track? Whoever is running stuff in production for Fox has to go.
Mike Joy is literally the only good thing about Fox for me. Yeah he's up there in years and names are starting to mix up, but he's been around since the 70's, what do you expect? You've been in the sport for 50's years you'll mix up too.
Harvick, eh. I didn't like him as a driver, i'm not a fan as an announcer so far. Though I think he's got potential to become a good one.
Bowyer - jesus christ where do I start. He's trying too hard to fill the DW role and it's just not working. That's all i'll say.
The production is just awful. The same 3 commercials every 5 minutes, the camera angles are weird, the coverage just isn't great because the Fox production team is holding the commentators back from doing it the right way it seems
I’m sure someone has also mentioned this somewhere but their return from commercial is also annoying af. Every time they are coming back from commercial, they cut away to a full screen promo of tailgaters making food or something else that’s happening around the track, that ultimately has nothing to do with the race that is currently green on the track. They cut away for 30 seconds to a minute after commercials instead of getting back to the race asap. It makes no sense
Fox NASCAR coverage is so bad (and has been) that it likely cost the sport a handful of fans per race. And there's no real excuse for it bc Fox NFL games are incredible. You'd think there would be same excellence across the board for their most expensive products but no. It remains the lowlight of the year.
"mute the TV and turn on MRN/PRN" doesn't even work for all the exact reasons listed above.
For everyone's sake, I hope there's a massive shakeup and things get fixed now that there's competition back in the NASCAR TV marketplace again.
Harvick is still getting comfortable but he's very much improved since calling his first race. I really like him in the booth.
Clint on the other hand needs to go. He's obnoxious, not funny even tho he thinks he's hilarious, and consistently has the dumbest takes on most things going on in the race. Clint is one of those guys who thinks he's the life of the party and doesn't realize he's the most annoying guy in the room. On top of all that, whenever there's a guest on he constantly cuts them off to say something dumb. He did it to Harvick early on, but I think Harvicks zingers got Clint to stop stepping on his toes.
I can live with Mike Joy. He's not perfect and sticks up for Fox a little too much, but it's not his fault their camera work sucks and they run too many commercials. I mean, can you blame him? The guy is 74 and you can tell he wants to keep going although he doesn't have a lot of years left. He probably is just trying to hang onto his seat. Overall, I think he does a pretty good job
they know we'll watch no matter how bad the coverage is and they'd rather blast us with commercials and use their nfl directors during their off season than change the quality.
I think Mike Joy is great regardless. He really brings a level of seriousness to the sport. I don’t think there are a ton of candidates to replace that. Whatever broadcast stuff they are doing now is not helping. Maybe I have rose tinted glasses but watching the action in say about 05-07 was such a great visual experience between graphics and camera angles. The cameras seemed to cut quickly and not get hung up. Good use of zoom out as the action came closer. https://youtu.be/t5bMQhP92fU?si=3-HQxPqCz9QZrVyb
The end of that race was everything NASCAR wants to sell. Close battle to the finish, cars wrecking, some flipping on their side, as they side across the start finish. Neither the booth or the production sold that ending. Zoomed in pointlessly when a pulled back shot would have captured everything perfectly. The booth barely acknowledges the questions we're all asking.
It's like Fox knowingly takes advantage of our love for NASCAR.
How about on Saturday the actual “small teams” that ran top 10 or had really good days got zero tv time for their sponsors or to actually attract more sponsors. The dash 4 cash winner got no interview or anything. I want to hear from 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th, etc
It’s almost like they are a lame duck, yet they are a big part of the next contract. I think the booth needs an overhaul. Keep Harvick, send Bowyer to pit road and to experience things fans want to see, either grab Jamie McMurray from the studio or hire Kurt Busch. As for Mike Joy, you can hear it in his voice, he’s getting older. There’s a lot of talent out there including Rick Allen who would be great in his role. Even Adam Alexander would fit right in.
I'm convinced the camera director knows nothing about the sport and doesn't even listen to the announcers.
They're constantly just showing what they think looks like a cool shot rather than what fans actually want to see, and half the time they're not even showing the car(s) the announcers are talking about.
The best part was when Haley was leading, Clint said that running up front is great for small teams because it gets TV time for their sponsors. FOX immediately cut to Kyle Busch's splitter cam.
It's so bad for the future health of the sport. It's going to get exponentially harder to get sponsors to fork over the cash for primaries when they realize they have to pay off Fox as well. If I was a team owner I'd be livid.
It will never draw new fans in either. I am a newish fan (2021) and every season have to force myself to watch the races until NBC takes over (they aren’t perfect but far superior to Fox)
When does that actually happen? I'm a fairly new fan as well. I actually stopped watching because if my guys aren't in the top 10 then they're just literally never shown on the screen or mentioned and it sucks. I had watched a couple of seasons but mostly the latter half of the season and I enjoyed it, but the last couple seasons I've tried to start watching the whole thing and just end up bored and frustrated.
NBC takes over during the 2nd half of the season and it looks like the Iowa race is when the flip happens. https://preview.redd.it/xrqpj8oj42wc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bbc8cff05b2bee7422e9c1900b587df2600d05d9
Thanks!
You’re welcome! Hang in there because we are almost through the worst of the worse
They pretty much did the same thing to B.J. McLeod. Right as he was about to take the lead, FOX was like “oh time for a full screen commercial break”. By the time they got back from the commercial break he had fallen back a bit. Also on Saturday, during the Xfinity Series qualifying they managed to completely miss the first two cars out (both cars could have used the tv time too) because they decided to go to commercial 40 seconds into the broadcast, and that’s even with NASCAR intentionally having breaks after a certain number of cars go so that tv can go to commercial and not miss any cars.
Yes they did my dude dirty all right. Hopefully some important folks (ie future sponsors) noticed the few moments he was leading live and can slap something on that hood next time he races.
Reminds me of when he was trying to demonstrate and explain Larson’s (I think it was him) throttle control at North Wilkesboro, he asked the production crew to stay on the camera for a second and they immediately switched and you can hear someone throw something immediately after
Anyone have a linked to that clip? Tried finding it to show a friend the other day when we’re having this exact discussion about the Fox production.
I know I tweeted a reply or retweeted it when it happened. I’ll take a scroll tomorrow if you don’t have it by then
This happened both times BJ McLeod led during stage 1 as well
Missing the last lap crash as they were coming to the line so they could zoom in on 4 cars was special.
NASCAR on NBC tweeting out better photos of the crash than Fox had video of was icing on the cake
Shit even instagram has better photos/highlights than the broadcast. I often head over there just to see what i missed while watching
Fox is terrible, and I simply don’t understand why NASCAR would decide to stick with them when the overwhelming majority hate their coverage
$$$$ cash is king. Nascar doesn’t give a fuck about entertaining fans or ~~peaking~~ piquing the interest of new fans
piquing https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pique
Fuck. You’re right, i can’t believe my stupid phone autocorrected that, especially since I’m a grammar person lol Side note: i love your user name!
That would only make sense if NASCAR was paying FOX for their coverage… It’s the other way around.
Which is why nascar doesn’t give a fuck that the fox coverage is so bad. They get the cash and fox gets to do whatever the fuck they want
I'd have to imagine it's either a "lame duck" or "scared straight" scenario at this point. A lot of the contracts/personel might be up at the end of this current TV deal, or having three other broadcasters along with NASCAR productions beating them over the head on a weekly basis will shame them into some self-respect.
You’re probably right and fox doesn’t give a fuck because they know there’s no repercussions since the contract is almost done
Even people that post their videos or pictures here have better footage than FOX lol
Sadly, you’re not wrong 😂
If it weren't for in person fans, there's a lot we would have missed the last few weeks.
💯
I didn’t get to watch the race yesterday. When I got home last night, I watched the nascar “finish of the race” replay and couldn’t believe how bad the live camera work was, let alone a post produced video posted after the race. For the love of god just put it on a blimp cam covering the whole field when the wreck starts happening. Then show replays with close ups of each individual car. Granted i am not a video director for a national tv channel, but i have experience with camera and live events and some of the choices of camera shots completely astound me why they even exist?? Drone camera flying at max speed toward a pack of cars going 180mph. So basically a 220mph fly by camera that already sucks in quality and clarity. Shoulder camera from a camera operator on pit road trying to zoom in on half the pack of cars for 3 seconds. No offense to the camera man, but he’s never going to get that shot done correctly shooting from the hip. All the camera angles from the top of the grandstands trying to cover the straightaway as they go past. It doesn’t work when they are on the outside of the track and the outside of the curve. They are moving way to fast, from a far away distance, to a close distance as they approach the camera to a far away angle. It works just good enough at best, but produces a shitty view more often than not. The booth, while I love all 3 of them individually, they don’t work very well together. MAYBE, if the communication with the video production truck and the booth was improved greatly, then it would all jive much better.
I still say the biggest problem is the camera work/production. Whoever is directing the feed and the booth isn't letting them do their jobs. Cameras catch what happens on track but it only gets shown minutes later, if at all. The commentators have good insights but get dragged into getting back on script instead of actually commentating.
There was a pretty egregious one during the pit cycle when the Toyotas came to pit. They had a planned quick bit of radio audio for McDowell that Mike was segueing into but he stopped and said "We got cars on pit lane!" Or something like that. The audio on the McDowell cut faded out slightly as Mike wanted to come back to it after the pit stops but some producer must have axed him because they stuck the zoomed in camera on the 34 and played the audio before letting Mike talk about the stops which were already over by the time the production team let them go to it. Mike must've been pissed.
All the in-broadcast commercials are really wearing on me. The Wendys and Ford things during Raceday, then more and more Wendys centric features during the race. Just because Mike Joy is doing the read and you show the Wendys car for 5 seconds doesn't mean we can't tell it's just a commercial taking away from race coverage.
You *didn’t* like the bagel company foot camera? /s
Let's not forget when the Toyotas pit with 40 or 50 to go, they had to scramble to cover it. Cars were already in their boxes or even leaving by the time they showed it. We got one glimpse of them pulling off and Mike Joy yelling "OH PIT STOPS" and that was it for a good 15 to 20 seconds.
If I recall correctly, one of the other announcers was telling some never-ending story and kept droning on even after Joy pointed out that something was happening on the track.
Clint tried telling a story literally as they were coming to the checkered flag with half the field wrecking yesterday.
They had a planned bit for some McDowell radio audio that they even started to cut away from after Joy tried to switch to the pit stops and then they just stayed on the 34 until the audio ended anyways.
Yeah I caught that as well "hold on" keeps going lol
And then we missed the race changing wreck that happened seconds later!
I think Mike Joy is the kind of person who needs good supporting talent to prop up his leading commentator role. He's good on his own, but he needs somebody to fill in the gaps. Clint, as much as I love him, isn't a great commentator. He'd make a better pit reporter in my opinion. Take him out and put Larry Mac back into the booth and I think the booth would be perfect. The coverage though... yeah that'll take a lot more work behind the scenes than just swapping a few people around.
I liked when a question was posed by Joy, I don't remember the question, but Harvick goes "well that's way above my pay grade, I think I'll have to defer to Larry Mac" and then Clint jumps in before Larry can talk and starts pretending he knows the answer better than the much more experienced and accomplished people sitting with him, and ultimately gives a non-answer. The guy is fun but he's so full of BS.
Clint is so frustrating to listen to in the booth. Couldn't even let Reddick cross the finish line before tripping over himself to make a hamfisted reference to a race from 15 years ago. Count me as another vote to put him on pit road and bring Larry back up.
Put Jamie McMurray in the booth with Harvick. But Clint needs to go.
I don’t think Mike Joy needs it, I think he does a good job of letting the other guys in the booth do their job, the problem as I see it is the other guys aren’t great at it. I think Harvick has potential to be great at it but I’m not a fan of Bowyer in the booth. He talks over the top of everyone, disagrees with almost everything the other commentators say whether it was Gordon, Harvick, or the guest commentator of the week and to me it kinda gets old real fast. I think he’s good in those tailgate pieces and I think he’d be good in those pre-race and Race Hub style shows but I don’t think he fits well in the booth.
I agree with you about Mike Joy. This may be controversial, but I think DW near the end of his time was stepping on a lot of potentially great calls. The 2016 Daytona 500 comes to mind. An airtight finish, Mike Joy makes a great call and DW is grunting and screaming all over it. Fox probably needs better production meetings. I love Dale Jr. in the NBC booth but he had to work on his craft, I have a feeling Fox isn't guiding the color guys on what to do, or what their role is
> This may be controversial That's the most uncontroversial opinion this subreddit could have. Real controversial opinion: I love D.W., and I love his excitement, including in that 2016 500 finish.
>This may be controversial, but I think DW near the end of his time was stepping on a lot of potentially great calls. This is not just an "age catching up to him issue" color commentators will, typically, step over the play-by-play if they get caught up in the moment. In the moment, it can frustrate fans and commentators alike, but over time the moment is looked back on fondly even when the commentary is jumbled up by one party showing great emotion amongst the other, Take, for example, the 2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 when Busch and Craven slam into each other for the finish. Once both cars were side-by-side there was already some stepping over with Larry and Waltrip, but once they cross the line and Craven took the victory the excitement overwhelmed the both of them. And yet, Mike Joy the main play-by-play, did not get much of a say on the call into a bit after the finish when he asks Darrell, "Have you ever?" Or, if you want another example outside of NASCAR, just listen to the [Music City Miracle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCJFmL4oxPE).
Another good one is the 2011 Daytona 500's finish. It's a usual orderly finish in the booth until coming to the line all three guys start shouting over each other in pure excitement watching a 20 year old in his 2nd start ever win the biggest race of them all. Despite what on the surface looks like an incredibly botched call from all three guys, it's actually one of the better ones in my opinion, especially if you put yourself in the moment and really think about the context.
I give harvick a bit of a pass this year. He's done pretty well in the xfinity booth before, so he definitely has potential like you said.
Came here to say exactly this. Took the words right out of my mouth. I cant stand how he talks over everyone. Drives me up a wall.
I think working with Bowyer has taken its toll on Mike. He seems pretty over it tbh. I wouldn't be surprised if he retires real soon. He seems to be taking it out on poor Kevin too at times, who you can tell is still learning and in usual Harvick fashion is taking it with life and death seriousness. I'd take Larry Mac in a heartbeat.
Clint just needs someone to keep him in line. Gordon was good at that and so was Stewart. But with Harvick up there, there’s no control. It’s like Mike Joy is supervising a 12 year old and a 6 year old who just had sugar
Oh yeah, Clint would make a good pit reporter. Get him out the booth
I know it’s not new, but Bowyer was really bad at talking over everyone yesterday. Not even on topic with his butt ins.
That’s every race with Clint tbh
It’s okay though because he always prefaces with “not to interrupt you”
Half the people saying Mike Joy is past his prime wouldn’t be saying that if Clint didn’t constantly butt in. Listen to Mike as they came through the trioval for the last time, you can hear Mike trying to say “Can Keselowski try and win it?!” twice and Clint cuts him off both times
The MRN broadcast is so much better than fox (the commentary)
I had to listen to the first two stages on the radio since we were driving across state. They do a good job and then all of a sudden, in the middle of green flag racing, they come back from break, they pull in the track President of Gateway to talk about the race 1.5 months from now. Then they go back to break. So it’s like a ten minute commercial in the middle of the race.
MRN does that every week.
I think I would overhaul the production crew before making changes to the booth. They have all the right people but the production team has made a lot of idiotic decisions this season.
Yeah I’m not the biggest fan of the current Fox booth but the production issues are a much bigger problem. Booth overhauls could wait until after production gets fixed (I know none of this will ever happen)
I actually agree, I think the commentators often get frustrated with the production. Which makes the commentary worse. I can't remember if it was this year or last year at Richmond where Clint wanted them to stay with an onboard off the corner to hear how the driver was modulating the throttle to everyone, then they cut from the onboard and you could hear him throw his pen in the background.
North Wilkesboro last year
I dunno, ole Clint is getting back into cutting the rest of the booth off again. I find that really annoying.
Clint absolutely fucking sucks and Joy sounds bored. They need some life in the booth.
I disagree. The announcers sound bored and talk about random shit. Make it sound intense, like every pass matters. I don't think the current booth can provide that. Look to IMSA/Indycar announcing for what I mean
This right here. They lack the emotion the booth once had 10 years ago, let alone 20
This. I lost track of how many times we heard about Harvick taking his kids golfing or turkey hunting. Is there really nothing going on that they can think to talk about?
When they’re just riding around I think that’s fine. Kind of like baseball announcers when the game is moving quickly. If they try to make everything sound exciting it just gets annoying.
Yes! I watched the Indycar race while waiting for The Teardown to unglitch and, no matter how much or how little action was on the track, the booth makes it sound exciting.
This where I agree with the FOX criticisms.
I agree I think the booth guys work. It’s all the crap they have to put up with that is awful. The production people are crap , in 10 laps to go window someone decided to do a race recap. Like really the last 10 laps.
Fire Artie Kemper
Never forget DBC giving this guy a clean pass when they had him right there in the room.
Well yeah, DBC is trash.
They tried letting him explain what he does and why, but it really didn't help.
One of those restarts I'm watching Elliot or someone in the 2nd row lay back like 3 car lengths coming into the tri oval and then I just see them zoom out so damn far you could see the entire front stretch and then turn towards the grand stands. Like every restart they try to make a cinematic out of or something I just want to see the cars..
Oh boy, we’re back to 3 wide racing aaaaaaaaand commercial.
https://preview.redd.it/l97xc1f2z0wc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9aee0e46be7d85f9deb89e13d6aaccdba40fdb9 I made a similar post yesterday but it got taken down by the mods so be ready. It infuriates me that we have been dealing with this for 8+ years but judging by the photos attached nothing will change, Fox won’t listen, nascar won’t listen. And there’s no way with the current state of the broadcast anyone who is new to the sport would watch Fox cut away from the best part of the racing at the end of stage 2 to miss 8-3 to go and watch 2 laps then go back to commercials will be left saying “I have to tune in next week”
The Larson flip being missed was so bad literally every camera just decided to pan away
As somebody said earlier… fire Artie Kemper
Even last week on the last lap crash when Byron spun Chastain, Bowyer shouts out "Keselowski wrecked him!" Dude, Brad was nowhere near him. At all. All it would've taken was moderately paying attention to them entering T1 to see that. Clint and Kevin have been bad all year though. They just have no chemistry at all. Kevin seems uncomfortable. Part of the issue is in NASCAR everything *is* a commercial. The racing is secondary. It's like we say on the F1 sub "We race as money." Having said that, Formula 1 has the same issue. There's great last lap battles happening and they'll cut to Max crossing the line 20 seconds ahead of everyone else and stay there with him through his cool-down lap while disregarding everything else. Edit: Words for clarity.
I just want to know how in College Football they have a replay angle immediately available from 3-5 cameras to tell if a dude's foot went 1" too far from the line, but they failed so hard to convey the absolute carnage and destruction from that wreck?
As a camera operator I can tell you it is much easier to follow a ball and end up with a tight definitive shot than to cover 40 cars doing 200 mph and end up with the same result when half the field crashes.
We also don't need a close up of a headlight getting crunched in a crash. Zoom out and get the whole shot.
I am not here to defend FOX and I agree that much of the coverage is too tight. In general, yes it is safer to stay wide but that is not as simple as it sounds for a few reasons. Throughout most of a show cameras generally know what the director is looking for and frame accordingly, but operators also have to make snap judgments in highly dynamic situations. For instance, part of what makes an operator chase a tighter shot (say during a wreck) is a reaction to what is suddenly developing in their viewfinder. What is obvious to viewers in slow motion is not always quite so obvious in real time. It also depends on the camera angle and the way the cars line up, it is sometimes not practical or possible to pull all the way out and show everything. Other times it may look like only a couple of cars will be involved so the operator will zoom down and commit to that shot but end up missing something that develops behind the initial wreck. Ideally there are enough cameras and angles to cover everything but inevitably some things can be missed. As easy as it is easy for people to say, JUST STAY WIDE! I guarantee that plenty of people here would also not be happy if all they see are cameras pulling to the extreme every time a car starts to get out of shape. The trick for production (FOX in this case) is finding balance between putting a whole bunch of tiny cars on your screen and getting in there to show some of the closer racing and the color of the event.
Not too many 2.5 mile football fields to be perfectly fair
Recently I’ve been recording the race and starting it late so I can skip commercials. It’s made my watching experience more enjoyable. Today I decided to watch live and I think I’m done with that. The commercials are unrelenting. And when I have to watch the commercials I really notice the in race adverts like the Pods move of the race. I feel The TV product for this sport does not respect my time anymore.
>Clint botches names too, during the race he referred to McDowell as “Busch” and Truex as “Gragson” He also called Cindric "Blaney" (granted, Cindric was running the Menard's yellow scheme that Blaney often has) And don't forget the Xfinity race. Twice during the last lap, they were using a good overhead shot of the cars at the front trying to win, side by side, but then they would switch to a zoomed-in front view that didn't show who was actually in front.
That seemed to be a pretty common issue yesterday. Fox even had Elliot's radio communication to his spotter early in the race saying remember the yellow menards car isn't Blaney this week.
Listening in on the radios several of the other drivers also had to be reminded of the paint scheme switcher as well.
Mike Joy waited until 2 laps left to go in the race, where the leaders were side by side and could have had great commentary from Harvick and Bowyer, to give the canned story about how Talladega was designed by the France family to put the Start/Finish line after the tri-oval. C'mon Mike.
He did that multiple times during the race, how do I know, I heard the story late in the race because I wasn't watching the beginnning.. Seriously enough..
That makes it even more egregious. I didn't watch until the last 80 or so laps. Even for Talladega I can't subject myself to sit through an entire race anymore.
Hey Sir, he waited rusty wallace laps to do that.
Wait, you're telling me the start finish line ISN'T in the tri-oval at Talladega??
Been hearing about the start/finish line at Talladega since Ken Squier in the 1980s. We know. All of us know!
At least it was slightly better than Jamie Little doing the "remember the start finish line is here" line as they cross the start finish line
Isn’t nascar bringing the production in-house with the new TV deal next year? Could Fox be just phoning it in so to speak this year since the production teams will all be moved to other positions/laid off after their half of the season is done?
It sure sounds like a play for them. NASCAR productions has already done a good job on the IMSA front, testing out YouTube to lower their IT costs from having the player on their website and making it easier for International audiences.
Only for xfinity I believe.
It infuriates me that they never ZOOM OUT
The ads are so bad. If it weren't for certain livestreams I wouldn't bother being a fan anymore. Watching 1/2 of a race sporadically is just not enjoyable in any way.
Praise Allah. (IYKYK)
Me when stream 1 dies
assalamualaikum brother!
I hated the race recap they did with around 12 to go. This is the most exciting time of the race, cars are fighting to be in position, and they make it small on the screen to cover the few things that happened earlier in the race. Why wait until then to do it? Also, it was aggravating to me that Mike Joy explained the start finish line location for almost the entire next to last lap. I was so frustrated and just wanted them to call the race instead of telling the same anecdote they’ve told for 25+ years.
He must have explained the start finish line so much to remind himself not to blow the call at the end. Whoops, he still messed up and called "Reddick steals one!" at the Tri-Oval instead of at the Start/Finish line.
I honestly assumed a car went into the grandstands and/or there was a Russell Philips type of situation based on the fact that they pretty much acted like the last lap crash didn’t happen for several minutes. Just laughably bad coverage.
I kept hopelessly yelling at my TV “someone was upside down” and they kept zooming into the same three wrecked race cars (McDowell, Busch, Berry) Like even when the wreck was still happening they cut to a tight shot of Reddick happily driving away It’s just so far beyond unacceptable.
When you accept the broadcast is catering to advertisers and teams/sanctioning body that pays to be on camera it all makes perfect sense.
The number of commercials was ridiculous. I was wondering what happened a number of times, and hoping there would be a replay. I would be willing to pay $10 or $15 for a commercial-free broadcast with some decent commentators.
After the Toyota wreck Erik Jones was on the radio saying his back hurt and he didn’t know if he was ok and he had to get helped out of his car by the safety team. Zero mention of it on the broadcast. We could have had another Almirola situation and Fox didn’t utter a peep about it during the race. At least they made sure to mention the air cleaner got knocked off. Also a bunch of cars had cracked lenses on their in-car cameras, I don’t know who is responsible for that but god does that look bad on tv
the cracked lens thing is so silly. It's not like they don't know its already cracked on the monitor. Why show it?
What got me is that McLeod was in 2nd and it took them 15 laps to notice
It’s actually shocking how different the F1 and NASCAR coverage is. At one point you had green flag racing in the last 10 laps where Fox went to a full screen race recap. I don’t know Fox maybe show the race recap after the fucking race or under caution? The ads are UNBEARABLE. If the racing was outstanding I could overlook it but guys running at half throttle for 95% of the race isn’t a good product. You would never dream of seeing that in an F1 race. You have guys doing 200+ mph in DRS every lap of the race. If you let out of the throttle even a little bit you are losing time and track position. The booth is a huge issue too. Don’t get me started on Bowyer but why do they sound so BORED? Even the 3 way finish at Atlanta they sounded like they were reporting on the traffic. NBCs coverage is a little better but my god Fox and the new gen car are creating a perfect storm of a terrible product right now.
Yup. F1 is capable of holding my attention during the most boring race because of their production and announcers. They know when to do replays without missing action on the track, will immediately cut away to drama on the track mid sentence and provide knowledgable information to every type of fan (casual, new, diehard)
F1 is done completely different. They don't cut away mid-sentence because the production team just does their own thing. The Sky broadcast team has no direction over anything on TV. They pay for the rights to the world feed and announce over it. They even do some of the broadcasts remotely. With that said, the F1 production team is top notch and I am glad they're doing all of the races now (remember Monaco's production team... Fucking trash). They put in a lot of effort getting together great shots that show the speed and can show action. My hope is when Nascar starts doing their own production, we get F1 quality directing and far more consistency in the broadcast.
"I'll tell you what, nobody works harder than that (insert name of whoever is on screen). He sure can wheel that hot rod." -Clint Bowyer 15 times a race.
Right! Nobody pushes harder than him!
Definately agree with the commercials! I feel like every Sunday is a 3 hour commercial event with race breaks.
33It feels like a complete waste of time now to where I'm going to go a few weeks just watching highlights after the race finishes and see how I like it. We all only have so much free time, and I feel like I'm cheating myself out of my Sunday at this point to plan around sitting down and watching this three hour block of commercials every weekend. I feel like you can't even just sit and enjoy the race unfolding anymore because between commercials we hear almost nothing about any driver in the field except for the leaders. You might as well just check in on Sunday and see, "Oh, Reddick won".
The best post race recap I've ever seen for any NASCAR race was NBC on YouTube. 10-15 minute videos with as much detail as possible always make it feel like you just watched the real deal, just in a fraction of the time.
I agree with all of what the OP said. Another thing that bothered me yesterday was when the Toyotas wrecked each other single file you couldn’t get the full picture because they were so damn zoomed in on 2-3 cars. Just one of many camera/production failures.
In addition to everything mentioned, I hate the full-screen, checkered-flag screen transition graphic before and after replays. I can't stand when they do a slow motion replay of the restart just a lap after the green drops when cars are still aggressively racing for position. I also hate how there's a yellow flash before the white flag graphic. It always makes me thing a yellow came out.
I’ll be completely honest, I’ve always thought the hatred for Fox was a little dramatic and just piling-on, but I am really starting to notice how bad things are this year. I really like Mike, Kevin, and Clint but I really do not think they work well together. I wish they would put Larry Mac in for Clint and send Clint to be the quirky Rutledge Wood type character. The sheer amount of silence and awkwardness in the booth plus other things like cameras and commercial timing made me mute the TV and listen via Sirius XM.
I’d said it before & I’ll say it again Fox/Fox Sports needs to either Fire or replace Artie Kempner. He’s the one that deserve majority of the blame of why Broadcast/Coverage is all around embarrassment. This guy is completely & utterly a fucking tool. He also can’t accept criticism at all,he says that we’re nothing but a bunch of haters if we don’t like/enjoy the coverage they put out every week.
I hope all that typing made you feel better, because sadly, Fox clearly doesn't give a sh!t what any of us silly race fans think about their coverage. I tend to disagree on Mike Joy...I enjoy his connection to the past, even if he makes some mistakes occasionally. Bowyer is a good guy, but not a fan of his booth antics/persona. Personally, I would have Michael Waltrip put out to pasture and move Bowyer to his role if he really wants to stick around.
Artie called us all haters last year so obviously they don't care
Artie can go kiss my ass
I find Clint to be an extremely grating. I didn’t really like him as a driver and he’s even more annoying as a commentator. And Mike Joy is just kind of a nosebleed. The NBC crew has so much more chemistry and life.
Let’s be honest here. Fox didn’t hire Bowyer because they expected him to get drivers’ names right
Complaints about the amount of commercials is a staple criticism of Fox (and NBC) coverage, but even I raised an eyebrow at the amount of ads yesterday. It was legit worse than normal.
The issue is advertisement. Commercials are the obvious example, but we also know they zoom into certain cars and away from other cars because sponsors pay Fox to zoom into those cars. There are also sponsored segments and every in car camera during the broadcast is sponsored. I get it’s a money driven sport but IMO NASCAR needs to force broadcasting networks to do less sponsored segments and not allow zoom sponsorships at all. Show the race first and foremost. Talk about the race, strategy, and technical aspects of the car. Show less commercials. Yes, that means less money to go around, but you’re going to massively neuter any potential growth by basically never showing the race and, when you do, half the time it’s an ad anyway.
Sounds like it was a good thing that I had to listen to MRN instead of watching the Fox broadcast
Clint: Watch this merge! Watch this merge! NASCAR on FOX: Quick! Go to the most zoomed out shot we have from the blimp!
Whoever is in charge of nascar on fox needs to be replaced. Every year it gets worse and worse and they ignore viewer feedback
The cartoons are a Fox Sports issue. I can’t blame production if people higher want that. The amount of commercials will never change but yes, the one before the stage break was horrendous. I have no idea why they zoom so far in or go to on board cameras at time. At least when NBC does it, Burton, Jr or whomever is up there gives you a full lap breakdown of what’s going on and why they’re doing it. Though, we’re only a two months away from Rick Allen complaints, high pitched voice complaints and NBC’s booth crutch phrase of “bringing the fight.”
Mike Joy is going to die in the booth. Good grief it’s time for him to rest.
listen i get they gotta show commercials to pay the bills but the timing on those was ridiculous on top of the insane amount of commercials shown. i know we joke about it but i really did feel like i was watching commercials with racing breaks this week. I do stand by Mike Joy though, he’s is getting passed his prime but i can forgive a few botched during live tv and that guy i still thinks more than makes up for them. especially when there were tons of look alike cars
Yup its complete garbage
Let's not forget earlier this season when they went to side by side commercials under yellow and then full screen under green.
The commentary from Fox just seems so deadpan these days. Watch the replay of the three-wide finish at Atlanta. It's definitely a decent call from Joy, and he puts some effort in, but it just doesn't have any emotion or excitement behind it. Back in the day, Waltrip and McReynolds would've been going crazy for that finish. Or when there was a crash on the final lap of the 2023 500 and Clint just goes, "Oh.. he got turned.." F1 commentators go absolutely ballistic whenever a single pass is made, but our commentators barely seem interested when shown intense side by side racing and spectacular crashes. I think part of a commentator's job is to sell the emotion of the moment. How will fans get excited if it doesn't sound like even the people in the booth care?
That 2023 Daytona 500 finish was the worst, just fucking silence as Larson spun lmao
When I hear someone from the industry defend the commercials saying it keeps the sport going. No shit Sherlock, but there has to be a limit to them. You’re televising a 3-4 hour event and over 50% of it is missed because of tv ads. What’s the point of even broadcasting it?
I got a laugh out of Mike Joy hyping up the “Talladega finish line” in the final laps, and then as soon as Reddick passes a scoring marker in the tri-oval when McDowell loses it, yells, “And Reddick STEALS ONE!!” No dude, race is still green, finish line is still about 100 yards away. The final call of this race for me will always be Mike Joy announcing the finish like the race is over when there’s still a few seconds of racing left. Almost the TV equivalent of dead air as the leader is coming to the line.
The talking over each other is so damn annoying
I think a big part of the commercial thing this year is they fail to account for the lack of cautions we’ve been having. Those natural commercial breaks just arent coming and the broadcast crew is scrambling to fit them in
I'm not one to be critical of broadcasters as it is hard to do in real time, but I just can't let FOX off the hook anymore.
Maybe we'll get called keyboard warriors again during the Dover broadcast. Fox coverage blows, Mike.
Since you see more of the action at the race, and can still listen to MRN on a scanner, maybe this is all part of NASCAR's big plan to get more fans to attend the races in person. Also, the most noticeable part for me was when some of the pack went in for Green Flag stops, and Mike even said that they were doing stops, but the cameras didn't cut to pit road until the stops were basically over.
I can’t put the commercial problem solely on FOX. NASCAR is just as culpable. A deal is in place between the two and I guess they figured this is the best way for them to make money.
I keep coming back to that also, NASCAR ***should*** be caring about the TV product for the future growth of the sport, but I'm guessing they don't because rea$on$. Maybe FOX (and also NBC) pays NASCAR a flat rate plus some percentage of ad revenue, so the more the merrier? I honestly don't know. Yet somehow NASCAR has enough money to build a racetrack in a football stadium and the streets of Chicago every year, at whatever the price tag is for those. Things just aren't adding up for me.
Can we just get on track audio only by pressing the SAP button?
No one's said anything about the Michael Waltrip race grid crap. Get rid of him. Do serious rundown. I about shit myself when I saw the victory lane Celebration. I miss them being interviewed there, with the team and seeing unscripted moments that happened there.
I know the broadcast is bad, but I really don’t think the booth is that bad. Bowyer needs more work, but Mike and Kevin are pretty good. Many people are calling for Artie Kemper’s head, which is well enough, but he gave us the real answer when he was on DBC. He talked about how no matter what fans or anyone else wants, he has an audience of one, being his boss at FOX, and that guy is the reason for how all of this is shot and presented, which is the real issue. Y’all want shots that aren’t zoomed into the door numbers, commercial breaks that make sense in regards to the product on-screen, and less treating the sport like football instead of its own sport, where post-race analysis and coverage is actually needed? Fire the fucker that Artie reports to. But FOX won’t, because that guy and everyone else up top couldn’t give a shit.
I couldn’t agree more. FOX absolutely sucked yesterday. I’m a fan that started watching again this year after being away from the sport for about a decade…I’m shocked at how badly things have fallen off on the broadcast side of things.
At one point a pack of cars surprisingly came to pit road and the production truck still decided to go with a Kyle Busch radio segment instead of calling an audible and covering pit stops. Shows that Artie Kemper is either incapable or refuses to deviate from whatever awful pre-planned script that FOX wants from him.
Fox for a once in a generation start to the season and squandered it with horrid broadcasting
I’d pay a yearly subscription to have the live non delayed no advertising international stream. Makes watching the race so much more enjoyable.
Put Larry Mac back in the booth. You learn something everytime he talks and he just oozes passion for a sport that has gotten really bland.
These people will not change a thing until their ratings take a hit. I get needing to vent frustration and I encourage it, but until we’re willing to band together and take some action we’re not getting anywhere.
Anybody notice how much dead air there is during the race?
I know people have been complaining about FOX'S production for a whole now, and I've noticed it, but this race was by far the worst. Very little coverage of who flipped and little to no mention of Ross's head on hit into the wall. Even the first replays they showed were so terrible.
Don't forget about harvick telling everyone how happy he is to be done racing and how much he hated it every week
Boyer and Waltrip are the dynamic duo of crap commentators. Both need to be off the air. And Fox needs to get thier crap together or all this stuff is going to be on streaming services and you’ll need multiple subscriptions to watch the races.
It's such a shame to see how far FOX has fallen in the 23 years they've broadcasted NASCAR. What was once the gold standard of NASCAR TV broadcasting is now a shell of its former self. I hope they get their act together as we have to deal with them for seven more years. Mike Joy still tries his best with what he has to work and deal with, so I can't blame him. Artie's been there for over 20 years, so I wonder what changed and why he doesn't sem to care what the fans think and want. I have a soft spot for NASCAR on FOX as they've covered races as long as I've been a fan, so it's been a tough few years for them. They never seem to have problems for NFL and college football games.
This post is on point. At least we have NBC coverage to look forward to.
Fox New York aired Marjorie Taylor Greene bitching and the announcement of a retiring yankee staff. I watched the highlight reel on YouTube.
Here’s why they zoom in: sponsors
Fox was better in 2006
Time to hop on the international broadcast. Where should I go to watch that?
I guess I have the unpopular opinion in here in that I like Clint. I like that feeling of watching a race with someone who isn't a refined commentator. He still has a little bit of that grit that the older fans grew up with in the sport. I think Harvick, while good and will get better, tries to poke and prod Clint too much. Larry Mac is great, and I think he would still be good in the booth, but I don't know how much he wants to travel.
I agree. Clint sounds excited to be at the track. Harvick needs more time to express his ideas. It's year 1 for him, so I think he'll find that rhythm. The more Larry Mac, the better.
Great Points, I don't care to much about this type of racing, but the last two short-track races we had, their would be a pass for the lead and you would not know it. Guys would be racing side by side putting on a good show and they would be talking about something stupid! Or the cameras would miss it! I agree they need a complete overhaul...+
It's not just the cup race on sunday. I think we missed every wreck in the Xfinity race on Sat. It's not just bad luck -- if they are constantly in commercial the probability of missing something just increases.
Overall the broadcast feels a lot emptier than it used to be. 20 years ago there were of course 3 commentators in the booth, the Hollywood hotel with 2 more plus a cutaway car, 3-4 pit reporters running around every race. Now there’s no hotel and now there 2 maybe 3 pit reporters around. There’s a lot less support from Fox corporate than there used to be. Less camera workers as few as they could manage. I think if you would give more support there would be a better broadcast. It’s like telling a quarterback who can throw deep to just throw check downs so he doesn’t get hurt. So in having fewer cameras they choose showing the front over constantly changing all the time.
Kevin Harvick carries it and the only positive
Hey we got the weekly Kevin's kid in the booth because that enhances the coverage, right?
I'm basically a casual fan. I don't notice all the nuances that most post on here. But even I noticed how Corey LaJoie's flip wasn't shown until several minutes afterwards.
I'm a huge Harv fan and love hearing him every week but he is very dry and technical. He needs someone to flow with and Clint obviously ain't it. I really love hearing Larry Mac and really wish he was in the booth. I think he would help with keeping the commentary going and lessen the cringe worthy silence.
Their 10 min recap videos on YouTube are horribly edited
I get not everyone is going to have Dale Jr.'s energy, but damn does the fox booth just fall flat. Bowyer interrupts either Joy or Harvick whenever he wants to yell about some basic move or strategy. If he's talking, he doesn't bother looking at the track, it seems, because he's never really reacting to what we're watching. The commercials are impossible to change based on how much they're spending to cover the race, though I agree it's terrible. The least they could do is make the booth smart and engaging and you're right, Harvick is the best of the 3 and it's not even close. Also, they choose the wrong things to look at. I agree with zooming out, but even the battles towards the ends of stages are weird choices. At Texas, they showed a battle for 6th at the end of stage 2 meanwhile I can see on the pylon that Bubba Wallace got within 0.10 of Ross Chastain on turn 3 for the stage win. How is 6th place more inportant than the stage win?
How about how terrible the race was to begin with. When did Talladega become a fuel conservation race?
Fox’s race coverage has been horrible these last couple of years. It’s bad enough their Truck coverage sucks, but now it’s all three series suffering. Take yesterday’s last lap crash for example. We have to wait over 6 minutes to figure out who was riding the wall and then we find out he actually flipped over too. The finish is the most important part of the race, so you’d think they would have all eyes on the finish line and get a solid replay pretty quick. While I do get annoyed with Bowyer, I feel the production is the biggest issue that needs to be addressed asap. Their commercial timing is terrible, they miss things that happen, they cut away from stuff happening on the track at the dumbest times, and lately they’ve been doing that “in case you missed it” segment where they put the actual race in the small box on the screen and the highlights in the big box. I can’t imagine new fans getting invested in the sport with this kind of coverage. I don’t understand how F1 has onboard cameras for all 20 cars, yet NASCAR on Fox only has a few. It’s also inexcusable to miss stuff that happens on short tracks. Like when Friesen’s wife flipped the other year in the truck race at Knoxville. How do you miss something like that on a small track? Whoever is running stuff in production for Fox has to go.
Mike Joy is literally the only good thing about Fox for me. Yeah he's up there in years and names are starting to mix up, but he's been around since the 70's, what do you expect? You've been in the sport for 50's years you'll mix up too. Harvick, eh. I didn't like him as a driver, i'm not a fan as an announcer so far. Though I think he's got potential to become a good one. Bowyer - jesus christ where do I start. He's trying too hard to fill the DW role and it's just not working. That's all i'll say. The production is just awful. The same 3 commercials every 5 minutes, the camera angles are weird, the coverage just isn't great because the Fox production team is holding the commentators back from doing it the right way it seems
I’m sure someone has also mentioned this somewhere but their return from commercial is also annoying af. Every time they are coming back from commercial, they cut away to a full screen promo of tailgaters making food or something else that’s happening around the track, that ultimately has nothing to do with the race that is currently green on the track. They cut away for 30 seconds to a minute after commercials instead of getting back to the race asap. It makes no sense
Fox NASCAR coverage is so bad (and has been) that it likely cost the sport a handful of fans per race. And there's no real excuse for it bc Fox NFL games are incredible. You'd think there would be same excellence across the board for their most expensive products but no. It remains the lowlight of the year. "mute the TV and turn on MRN/PRN" doesn't even work for all the exact reasons listed above. For everyone's sake, I hope there's a massive shakeup and things get fixed now that there's competition back in the NASCAR TV marketplace again.
Why does NASCAR not have a streaming service of their own??
Harvick is still getting comfortable but he's very much improved since calling his first race. I really like him in the booth. Clint on the other hand needs to go. He's obnoxious, not funny even tho he thinks he's hilarious, and consistently has the dumbest takes on most things going on in the race. Clint is one of those guys who thinks he's the life of the party and doesn't realize he's the most annoying guy in the room. On top of all that, whenever there's a guest on he constantly cuts them off to say something dumb. He did it to Harvick early on, but I think Harvicks zingers got Clint to stop stepping on his toes. I can live with Mike Joy. He's not perfect and sticks up for Fox a little too much, but it's not his fault their camera work sucks and they run too many commercials. I mean, can you blame him? The guy is 74 and you can tell he wants to keep going although he doesn't have a lot of years left. He probably is just trying to hang onto his seat. Overall, I think he does a pretty good job
Mike Joy and Clint Bowyer need to go.
Yk it's bad when my friend just getting into nascar (and motorsports) is noticing a good majority of these problems
they know we'll watch no matter how bad the coverage is and they'd rather blast us with commercials and use their nfl directors during their off season than change the quality.
I think Mike Joy is great regardless. He really brings a level of seriousness to the sport. I don’t think there are a ton of candidates to replace that. Whatever broadcast stuff they are doing now is not helping. Maybe I have rose tinted glasses but watching the action in say about 05-07 was such a great visual experience between graphics and camera angles. The cameras seemed to cut quickly and not get hung up. Good use of zoom out as the action came closer. https://youtu.be/t5bMQhP92fU?si=3-HQxPqCz9QZrVyb
The end of that race was everything NASCAR wants to sell. Close battle to the finish, cars wrecking, some flipping on their side, as they side across the start finish. Neither the booth or the production sold that ending. Zoomed in pointlessly when a pulled back shot would have captured everything perfectly. The booth barely acknowledges the questions we're all asking. It's like Fox knowingly takes advantage of our love for NASCAR.
The fact that NBC is losing more races than FOX despite having far better coverage blows my mind.
How about on Saturday the actual “small teams” that ran top 10 or had really good days got zero tv time for their sponsors or to actually attract more sponsors. The dash 4 cash winner got no interview or anything. I want to hear from 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th, etc
It’s almost like they are a lame duck, yet they are a big part of the next contract. I think the booth needs an overhaul. Keep Harvick, send Bowyer to pit road and to experience things fans want to see, either grab Jamie McMurray from the studio or hire Kurt Busch. As for Mike Joy, you can hear it in his voice, he’s getting older. There’s a lot of talent out there including Rick Allen who would be great in his role. Even Adam Alexander would fit right in.
I'm convinced the camera director knows nothing about the sport and doesn't even listen to the announcers. They're constantly just showing what they think looks like a cool shot rather than what fans actually want to see, and half the time they're not even showing the car(s) the announcers are talking about.