not that this is news to anyone but still... FOX Sports announces FOX Sports 1 network - News | FOX Sports on MSN
i would not call it good news but it is news nonetheless. ohhhhhh i miss two wheel tuesday...saturday night thunder... rip speedvision.
+1 Two Wheel Tuesday was awesome (that just happened to be during my bike riding years...sigh) they also had a lot of military/airplane shows, though most of those have migrated to Military Channel. now we get "RU faster than a redneck" and UFC.
chas, it is sad to think that there must be so few of us out here that we simply cannot drive or even represent a market w/ any specific gravity.
see also: ALMS although I would have thought a racing only channel with cars/bikes/planes/boats would have critical mass. I guess I was wrong.
The kids have their dang gum fancy interwebs, Walkmans and Donkey Kongs now. Television hasn't got a chance. BHW
Don't worry racing (ur ) NASCAR fans, FOX Sports 1 has you covered with NASCAR SPRINT CUP PRACTICE, NCWTS QUALIFYING, NASCAR SPRINT CUP FINAL PRACTICE and NCWTS RACING. What would we do if we couldn't see NASCAR practice and qualifying sessions? Other forms of racing? Not so much... At least they're keeping MotoGP on the air. Don't Worry SPEED Fans: Fox Sports 1 Has Motorsports covered!
+2 Especially in the beginning when they used to show EVERY lap of EVERY race. I was addicted to the TV on Tuesday afternoons...until they started with the themed show(s) and that bald headed dude and started just showing racing highlights. I am sort of thankful because I was able to quit the Tuesday TV habit due to them tinkering and wrecking the perfect programming they had before....which cost them much less IMO by just airing the pre-broadcasted races as opposed to producing a show(s) and generating content!
It's starting to look as though these sports networks are going to take over the cable and satellite menus. They're all running after ESPN's market share but ESPN has been around (what?) 30+ years now and with it's association with ABC looks to be in a solid position. With all the sports channel expansion, however, we may only hope that things don't get as diluted as they have with the cable "news" networks which seem to be in a race to the bottom with FOX once again leading the way. It seems all of them want a piece of MLB, NFL, NBA, etc. (stick & ball sports) but each of these organizations also have their own 24/7 dedicated networks which brings things back to NASCAR. If NASCAR wants their product out in front of an audience 24/7, why not just start their own network? They fully sucked all of the life out of Speed which was predictable and reports are that networks they have contracts with to show their races aren't happy as the audience is drifting away and NASCAR blocks up so much of their air time they have no where to move. The over saturation of TV sports may well be their undoing. Last year, under terms of the new deal between the NFL and participating networks, they granted 500 (extra) hours of TV broadcast time. So, the sports PR machines like ESPN start cranking up the NFL hype as early as June and it's now in full pitch that training camps have started. Watching ESPN today, one might think they were in mid-season as it is wall-to-wall NFL news and what MLB players are going to be banned for PED's. They're stepping all over the number one rule of marketing, over exposure cheapens the product. Every event, no matter how insignificant, now get's virtual Super Bowl hype which no event may ever live up to. BHW
Interesting article, thanks for posting. As much as we like to think motor sports is this huge entity with a virtually unlimited audience of fans around the world, it really accounts for a literal drop in the ocean compared to the stick and ball sports and other forms of entertainment. We'd like to think that Speed in it's original form would have had a huge following even though it played in very limited markets and many had to beg their cable or satellite providers to put it on their menus. The sad fact is they probably generated more income for the network selling air time to infomercials selling exercise equipment and kitchen appliances than they did showing actual racing. People working in media any amount of time understand one thing though, their gigs can change in an instant at the discretion of a corporate board of directors so the Speed staff in Charlotte should be happy at least, they had months to prepare rather than a few minutes. BHW
Another interesting article, Voices of Speed: Reflections on the Demise of the Speed Channel | Car and Driver Snippet...
Hopefully, Werner's drink will be as watered down as the channel he founded became due to his allowing NASCAR to get a foot in the door. BHW
Here are the numbers... Did the Speed Channel Have to Die? Examining the Economics ? Feature ? Car and Driver | Car and Driver Blog BHW
good article. this sentence, buried at the bottom of the article, tells me a lot: traditional racing (NASCAR, sports car, Indy, even amateur racing like SCCA) is decidedly NOT a GenX/GenY/Millenial sport, and those old fogeys tend to be stuck in the past and bitter....not exactly the dynamic, upbeat, discretionary income 18-34 y.o. audience advertisers love.
Well they better watch out, because those favored young kids do not watch TV. Motorsports tend to lose a bit on a two inch screen.
you are correct, those kids don't watch traditional racing but they do watch drifting and rallycross in 15 second youtube clips...
And this is exactly what motor sport of all types must be addressing, an aging demographic and a younger demographic which could hardly care less about getting driver's licenses much less sitting in front of a TV for eight hours watching 50's technology cars going roundy-round. The kids today which are into racing like guys like Ken Block and they're hip to technology. Racing must be looking forward 10 and 20 years from now and deciding where their interests will be best served if racing wishes to continue being relevant, otherwise that $400M investment DIS is putting into completely re-constructing their front grandstand may will be ending up in tomorrow's scrap heap. BHW