Fifteen years ago NASCAR signaled the first move of its visionary plan to grow in popularity. Fox Sports along with NBC/Turner stole television rights to NASCAR away from ESPN and CBS. Fox Sports at the time was showing signs of being a serious competitor to ESPN. Fox Sports Net regional sports channels were growing in viewership and adding NASCAR programming would only bring positive results.
ESPN and NASCAR however experienced the kind of mutual benefit seldom seen by any network and property. Without NASCAR, ESPN would most likely still be airing collegiate table tennis. In contrast, without ESPN NASCAR would still be a southern niche sport.
The very moment Fox aired the first NASCAR telecast it became clear Fox was more committed to NASCAR than ESPN ever was. Fox launched a daily NASCAR news program, Totally NASCAR, to compete with ESPN2's RPM2Nite. That wasn't enough however. Fox then went ahead and acquired a majority stake in the car and auto racing channel SpeedVision. Only a few months after the acquisition, Fox decided to buy SpeedVision entirely and use the network to air more hours of NASCAR than anyone had ever experienced.
One of the main factors to Fox's success was NASCAR's treatment of ESPN during the 2001 season. ESPN was all but banned from NASCAR events. ESPN was not allowed to show video of any NASCAR event on SportsCenter or RPM2Nite. Instead, any mention of NASCAR on either program was accompanied by still images. This treatment resulted in ESPN cancelling RPM2Nite in late 2003 and subsequently ignoring NASCAR completely outside of ESPN Classic from 2004-2006.
The 2015 season will see the return of the Fox/NBC partnership. This time however, both Fox and NBC now operate their own 24/7 cable sports networks. SPEED Channel has become Fox Sports 1 and OLN/Versus is now NBCSN. ESPN now is facing NASCAR on competing networks, something it has never experienced before.
ESPN has clearly realized the threat. Coverage of NASCAR on SportsCenter over the 2014 season has been more common than ever before. For the first time since 2001 ESPN dedicated more than five minutes to discuss NASCAR!
Hopefully, NASCAR will allow ESPN to continue to cover NASCAR. To have three major cable sports networks discussing NASCAR can only be beneficial. However, it's up to NASCAR to allow this to happen and ESPN must still be willing.
ESPN and NASCAR however experienced the kind of mutual benefit seldom seen by any network and property. Without NASCAR, ESPN would most likely still be airing collegiate table tennis. In contrast, without ESPN NASCAR would still be a southern niche sport.
The very moment Fox aired the first NASCAR telecast it became clear Fox was more committed to NASCAR than ESPN ever was. Fox launched a daily NASCAR news program, Totally NASCAR, to compete with ESPN2's RPM2Nite. That wasn't enough however. Fox then went ahead and acquired a majority stake in the car and auto racing channel SpeedVision. Only a few months after the acquisition, Fox decided to buy SpeedVision entirely and use the network to air more hours of NASCAR than anyone had ever experienced.
One of the main factors to Fox's success was NASCAR's treatment of ESPN during the 2001 season. ESPN was all but banned from NASCAR events. ESPN was not allowed to show video of any NASCAR event on SportsCenter or RPM2Nite. Instead, any mention of NASCAR on either program was accompanied by still images. This treatment resulted in ESPN cancelling RPM2Nite in late 2003 and subsequently ignoring NASCAR completely outside of ESPN Classic from 2004-2006.
The 2015 season will see the return of the Fox/NBC partnership. This time however, both Fox and NBC now operate their own 24/7 cable sports networks. SPEED Channel has become Fox Sports 1 and OLN/Versus is now NBCSN. ESPN now is facing NASCAR on competing networks, something it has never experienced before.
ESPN has clearly realized the threat. Coverage of NASCAR on SportsCenter over the 2014 season has been more common than ever before. For the first time since 2001 ESPN dedicated more than five minutes to discuss NASCAR!
Hopefully, NASCAR will allow ESPN to continue to cover NASCAR. To have three major cable sports networks discussing NASCAR can only be beneficial. However, it's up to NASCAR to allow this to happen and ESPN must still be willing.
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