@@thecouch4702 ESPN did something similar to that at the 2020 Blue Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500, when they went over the top three finishers, they showed 2nd place which was Ryan Blaney as Dave Blaney, with an image of Dave Blaney and to top it off they used the Penske IndyCar 12 font
ESPN’s disrespect towards NASCAR turned me off of the channel for good. Their sports shows used to be informative, but now all they have are loudmouth analysts who have the most moronic takes. “Controversial takes get clicks” seems to be the underlying theme for ESPN these days.
Idk, like yes I feel they were iconic and when I think NASCAR from my childhood these guys and then some were a big part of it. But I just always felt fox sports has had the best commentary because they all just seemed like one big family with how they would joke around with Steve Bernyes and the old man jokes with Dr Dick Bergen. And now with both Jeff and Clint in the booth it's like being at the track with your buddies shooting the s*** watching a race at home. I would love to see Harvick join them when he retires I feel those 3 would be NASCAR Broadcasting GOLD
What I hated the most about the second stint with ESPN was the commentators talked like no one had ever seen a NASCAR race before. They dumbed it down. They also concentrated too much one one driver, like Jimmie Johnson far too much. There was one race at Texas where he crashed early and all the attention was focused on him. Few people remember Jeff Gordon won because that got very little air time. Going more political and moving races all the time didn't help matters.
First. Just like Gordon in the late 90s, Johnson was the hottest driver at the time in the late 2000s. Second Gordon didn’t win that race. Him and Johnson finished 1-2 in the Spring Texas Race. Third Johnson wrecked in the Chase Texas race fighting with Mark Martin who didn’t have a championship and Johnson was coming off of 3 straight championships. Nobody else was making headlines at that time plus Johnson won 3 of the first Chase races and didn’t even finish outside the 8 until the Texas race. That’s how good that 48 team was that year.
A child fan could tell you what drafting is. We didn't need it told to us 4 times a race. I know how plate racing works, you know how plate racing works, we all know how plate racing works. I don't need a cut-a-way car to tell me how air moves on a car. It was so insulting they assumed we know nothing about racing.
For sure. Watching racing when I was little they explained it enough to where you knew what was going on. And didn't treat you like a 2 year old that has never watched a race. Wasn't just ESPN. It was TNN, CBS, TBS, the announcers were there to lead you along. Not to ram the same old nonsense into your head.
Modern ESPN is a joke. When 95% of sports center is focused on two sports that aren’t even in season (NBA & NFL), you have a problem. Hell they barely even show highlights from all the MLB games now.
Sadly, it also happens with the NHL. ESPN became like a NBA-NFL network 24/7 + some NCAA football. I get it it's mainstream, but the other major leagues are ignored or are taken as a joke.
Even the hockey!! But if lebron james breathes we have to know. If tiger woods is gonna play and he’s plus 27 on the weekend we have to know. And if Tom Brady announces retirement we’ll never stop hearing it.
ESPN: Drivers to win the final 2 races of the season and the championship: Chase Elliott 2020 Kevin Harvick 2014 *Carl Edwards 2010* i'm not making this up lol espn actually showed a graphic like this once
"Nothing any of these guys can do, that hammering you hear, is the sound of the nail of the final *erm* coffin on the chase contenders' hopes of upsetting Jimmie Johnson" - Marty Reid
It's sad, Marty Reid's highlight in his career was when dan wheldon died and said something good and memorable in the end of the race. Other than that Marty sucked
I still don't understand why they never hired Allen Bestwick as lead commentator from the very start when they came back. I'm not saying it would have solved all their problems, but it would have made their coverage a lot more tolerable. Half the time Jerry Punch sounded like he just didn't want to be there.
ESPN promised Dr. Punch he'd have a prominent role if they ever got the rights back. They talk about it in the ESPN oral history book. It was a very painful day when they lost the rights, so they wanted to do right by Doc if he stuck around through the "dark ages" so to speak. He was the only guy from the old team who never left, so it made sense to bring him on as the lead.
@@danielwest9955 Punch was that loyal to ESPN. He never left the network. I can’t think ESPN without him with NASCAR like Jay Bilas without College Basketball.
Jerry was a good fill-in for Bob in the SpeedWorld era, but as the regular "voice" of the broadcast, he just didn't convey the energy level necessary for the job. Always a great pit reporter though, and having him in the pits was a blessing for all the crews in the event of a significant injury.
What pisses me off personally is that ESPN did not bring back its rock of Gibraltar, Mr. Bob Jenkins, in some way, shape, or form for their 2007-2014 second NASCAR stint. Also, ESPN completely threw out the window all of the things it did that made it so majestic to watch the first time around. Ironic in that I do not know exactly what the old ESPN did that fans loved so much.
@@topofthecircle but ESPN had been systematically demoting Speedworld people and turning motorsports into a soap opera for several years by 2007. Back in 2005 Paul Page was replaced on IndyCar by ABC sideline reporter Todd Harris of all people, who spent the entire Indy 500 slobbering over Danica Patrick in much the same way that ESPN would slobber over Jimmie and Jeff all race long
One main reason: They took racing off broadcast TV. The reason NASCAR was 2nd to the NFL was because you could find both on regular TV by just flipping channels on a Sunday afternoon. It's no coincidence ratings went down big around 2010. That's when ESPN pulled *everything* but three races off ABC. As a kid growing up without cable, I literally went a half-decade without seeing Watkins Glen, Fall Talladega or the Homestead finale. They did some serious damage to the "casual" audience who just found NASCAR by having it so readily available.
Yep I never had cable or Internet as a kid in through the 2000's and early 2010's. Whenever they had the majority of there Cup races on the ESPN cable network it was never explained why like I really wanted to watch some races with literally nothing in the months of July or August other than baseball. Sometimes when Football started there season ABC had no sports scheduled could've used it to show NASCAR races but they didn't.. Pfft
in the 90s NASCAR races were more on cable than on OTA broadcast tv. TNN.TNT and ESPN for the most part. i only remember a handful of races on actual brodcast networks in the 90s
@@americanbadass88 Right. The point is the ratings were at their highest when they moved mainly to OTA. It's no coincidence the ratings peaked in '05. That was the middle of the TV deal.
Bob Jenkins and BP were the best NASCAR duo of all time! The excitement Jenkins brought to the booth and the knowledge of Benny Parsons have not been matched since.
Bob, Ned and Benny. Dr. Jerry in the pits. I'd put them up against any broadcast crew in sports. A legendary combination that was alot more responsible for the growth of Nascar in the 90's than given credit for.
LoL I'm probably the only one that thought Bill Weber was decent but I agree they probably couldn't have replaced Allen Bestwick will Bill Weber for the Cup races at least.
@@packisbetter90 Yeah Rick Allen is definitely an F grade commentator while Bill Weber is in between D or C. Vince Welch is also another F grade for me as well.
What it came down to was that Disney wanted ABC Sports/ESPN to cut costs so it could make more money and the corporation went through and purged all the long time people at the studio and the new management did not like motorsports at all. Once the management changed they just let NASCAR wither until the contract was up so they could purge NASCAR along with all other motorsports.
That’s how NHRA landed at FOX and NBC got full IndyCar contract as I predicted back in 2011. If I were the heads of NBC/Universal. With NHL back at ESPN and ABC. I’d reup with IndyCar. Keep Indy 500. You got that and Derby. Of course NASCAR is basically lead in for SNF in Fall. Before it transitions to full on Notre Dame coverage and Sunday Night Football there on out.
But ESPN putting more money into the coverage actually made it worse, by far the worst years of the run were the years ESPN spent the most money on it. The beauty of Speedworld was that it covered the races as a sporting event, not as some sort of cultural event.
They did not care about motorsport as a whole. At least NASCAR got off before ESPN went to total shit. Just look at IndyCar between 2015-2018. They didn't care about racing, they only cared about the one day that made the network money.
There are still plenty gaffs like that to go around today on Fox and NBC. Mike Joy and Rick Allen are terrible. Jeff Gordon lately has sounded like he has forgot most of what he knew. TV broadcasters are not even close Ewing in the same league as MRN and PRN radio. Fox and NBC should drop their crews and pay MRN and PRN to do their broadcast.
@@coltsforsuperbowllvii6827 just listen closely to these guys and what they say. They are commentating a race they aren’t even watching. The TV booth product is getting really bad on both networks.
Towards the end of their most recent contract, it almost seemed as if Disney showed more Nationwide series races on ABC than they did Sprint Cup races (which were almost exclusively on ESPN).
ESPN pretty much stopped caring I think after they lost the rights the first time in 2000. The second run (2007-2014) was never as passionate or enthusiastic, despite the later addition of Allen Bestwick to the broadcast booth.
As an F1 fan I agree with you about ESPN because when ESPN first had F1 from 1989-1997 they had excellent commentators in Bob Varsha and David Hobbs and were passionate about the sport, especially during the Prost-Senna rivalry of the early 90's. However when ESPN regained the rights to F1 back in 2017 after 20 years away, they didn't bother to bring back either Varsha or Hobbs nor did they decide bring over Hobb's F1 colleagues from NBC, Leigh Diffey and Steve Matchett. Instead they decided to rely entirely on the global feed provided by Sky Sports out of the UK and not bother to even send their own camera crews or a commentary team to the races. Whenever I watch F1 on ESPN, I get the impression that I am watching Sky Sports instead of something original that is produced by ESPN despite the fact that ESPN heavily promotes F1 in ads and features them more on SportsCenter than they did when they first had the rights. The F1 contract expires next season and I hope another network gets the rights just so that we get original and authentic coverage here in the US.
@@chrisguardiano6143 Absolutely agreed. But NBC declined to renew because of F1's new streaming service (are people going to pay to watch the race on NBC Sports, or on F1TV?). Maybe, now that the networks have their own streaming services (Peacock, Paramount Plus, Disney+) with uber content, F1TV won't be seen as quite the threat to ratings & customer base as it was in 2017.
@@NotSteveCook whoever gets the F1 rights for next season and beyond will likely put more races on streaming especially NBC with Peacock now that NBCSN is going away after the Olympics in September. The same can be said for Paramount+ and CBS. I don't mind this as long as NBC and CBS present F1 in a way that is original and authentic and is less reliant on the Sky Sports global feed.
i think they purposely drove nascar in the dirt. trying to ruin it. so they get more views on the other sporst. even back then ESPN was all about race bs drama. i mean black and white.
I agree, especially with that last point about ESPNs culture shift in what it wanted to represent and they thought NASCAR didn't line up with that. The culture shift is also what has lead to the networks downward trend too.
Why did it fail? Easy. ESPN was run by people who didn't seem to value motorsports. I'm not saying NASCAR is the top priority of FOX or NBC now, but you can tell they legitimately care about putting on something special, even if FOX is beginning to lose that magic a bit now. Say what you want about NBC Sports' coverage and Rick Allen, but I get the feeling they legitimiately care for motorsports, and see it as one of the things that makes NBC Sports worth it. ESPN never cared that much. Shuffling races off of broadcast TV, not providing an alternative for missing race content, and not showing a ton of love to the sport. I mean I can count the amount of NASCAR This is SportsCenter ads on my fingers. And with the way ESPN has gotten worse since NASCAR left them, I don't want them back, because even if they aren't as cheap as possible, they'll screw it up.
That's because ESPN and most "sports media" only care about American football and basketball, maybe baseball if you're lucky. You NEVER hear about motorsports or any other sport that isn't one of those 3. Hell, college-level football and basketball games get more coverage than motorsports.
The problem was, is that they DIDN’T care about NASCAR enough to put it on free tv, where everyone could get it. Fox during that time put all of their races on free tv, with the exception of the all-Star race on Speed/FS1, as it’s not a points race, and it’s always been on cable networks to begin with. TNT I could understand, as they didn’t have NBC as their partner, but there was no excuse for ESPN not putting more NASCAR races on free tv.
Off topic but I really miss speed channel, they really cared about the sport and I think all the teams respected the channel and reporter. They didn't get to fancy and kept it real.
6:22 I'll never understand why NBC did this. Allen Bestwick was and still is one of the best play-by-play guys in auto racing. Bill Weber was one of the best pit reporters. Why swap them? It made absolutely no sense.
Bestwick was the best on ESPN when it came back. Still think NASCAR coverage as a whole was the best from 2001 to 2006 though with FOX and NBC. Of course Bestwick was at NBC too with other solid announcers like BP, Dallenbach, and Weber. FOX with DW, Joy, Mcreynolds in the booth with Meyers and Hammond in the Hollywood Hotel was all time favorite. CBS was good before as well
The problem was simple: ESPN was a different animal when NASCAR returned in 2007. Stick-and-ball sports, in particular NBA and NCAA, became top priority along with the 'embrace debate' shows that have dominated their programming for over a decade. It wasn't the same as it was in 2000. The NASCAR commentary team did the best they could, but I don't think they had the proper support because the folks at Bristol, CT are heavily biased towards football and basketball. For example, Nationwide races seemed to be in the way of college football every year as its pre-race shows and even some race starts were moved to ESPN Classic until a football game was over. The reason why ESPN moved most of their races from ABC to ESPN in 2010 was it was their way to avoid Cup races being pre-empted for ABC programming like America's Funniest Videos. However, that didn't make sense because 2010 was also the first year of the standardized start times that kept races away from the 6 PM local news timeslot. I feel that because most of the second-half was on cable in 2010-2014 that it didn't provide enough leverage for NASCAR to advocate more races on NBC instead of NBCSN in the current deal. I agree the move from network and cable contributed to the ratings decline.
Bob Jenkins, Benny Parsons and Ned Jarrett were the OG for NASCAR/ESPN back in the day. Best commentary NASCAR ever had, IMO. (But I'll add, I LOVE Dale Jr. on NBC.)
I remember in 2013 Kyle Larson car almost went in to the stands. There were several big accidents in this race. That following Monday Mike Golic from Mike and Mike in the morning was talking about the accident and Golic said I wondered how they were going to race on Sunday when so many cars were torn up on Saturday. ESPN and Golic were crucified for this and he had to make an apology live on the air after a commercial break.
The problem with networks coming back, is thinking the previous version is coming back. People expected the Bob, Ned and Benny show when ESPN came back. Same with the nostalgia for people wanting CBS back. It wouldn't be the Ken Squier version.
@@Ultimate23Dragon Never forget that they aired a race on Fox News, although NBC isn’t perfect either with them airing races on CNBC, but I still prefer NBC’s broadcasts over Fox.
@@Flamingbro69 yeah me neither. I guess they're struggling with finances but of course every TV Network is struggling with there money. I guess it's the fact NBCSN isn't in more cable packages and households and there viewership is taking hits or its the Peacock effect combined.
I think ESPN really shot themselves in the foot not airing NASCAR enough of OTA and basic cable like ABC. I remember being able to switch over to ESPN2 and watch with my family but my best friend who I spoke with at school the next day was really mad because he is a huge Jimmy Johnson fan and missed it.
The world is cultured change! ESPN used to be sport center highlights after highlights, but now politics and less sports. I want sport highlights not culture change or politics!
I loved watching nascar on NBC and TNT from 2001to 2006 and I loved Allen, Wally, and Benny, then when ESPN took over, I was pissed and I couldn't stand the announcers. They really ruined my spirit of nascar those years. But when Allen Bestwick took over as announcer, it got a little better. But now I'm happy NBC came back because now we got Dale Jr in the booth talking about those giant ass spoilers.
I vividly remember the ESPN days of NASCAR. But what I do still have fresh in my mind is NBCSN’s promo with Nick Offerman, saying that there coming back to broadcast NASCAR. that was an awesome promo
ESPN sucked and to this day still sucks. They treated NASCAR like it really wasn’t a sport, and thus ESPN never really cared for NASCAR. They hardly ever cover NASCAR to this day! They don’t deserve to air NASCAR ever again.
NASCAR is headed in the wrong direction, all the stage races, all the rule changes and all the new announcers that don’t know shit about racing, I’m laughing my ass off at what’s going on at Bristol this weekend, I’ll bet my ass SMOKE ( Tony) is really enjoying it.
I remember hearing about the 2014 Bank of America 500 debacle. if you all know the one I'm talking about, then you know where this is going, but if you never heard this story, strap in, it's a doozy : Alright here's the set up - race 5 of the 2014 NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup. We're halfway through the Challenger 12 (I always viewed "contender" as a lower rank than "challenger") in this new foudangled Chase for the Sprint Cup knock out grid (Which i despise to this very day with EVERY. SINGLE. FLAW. EXPOSED) and it's shaping up to be an absolute clobber fest for the title with names like Kevin Havrick, Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jr, and Kyle Busch among others trying to take title for themselves. This race is slated to be on ABC that Saturday night (as in the main ABC network. Who needs cable?! WE GOT THIS!) NASCAR fans tune into ABC... and are welcomed to NCAA football. Hey, wait what gives?! Where the hell is the Bank Of America 500?! Well... it was relegated to cable. As in ESPN. (also, getting dumped for god damn college football. Does THAT sound familiar to anyone reading this comment?) Think about it like this - All the good times we had on ESPN from the first race back ESPN in 2007 to Paul Menard's shock wave 2011 Brickyard 400 win to Marcos Ambrose VS Brad Keselwoski at Watkins Glen in 2012 to Harvick finally winning the title in 2014 and every good moment in between? Undone by the executives at every single god damn turn. What started as a triumphant return in 2007 had become the court jester slaying the corrupted king in 2014. And ESPN is STILL dropping on a downward spiral. I've seen the fuck ups they've done in other people talking about it. And yes, that includes a photo of the Martinsville spring race 2020 where they used *Will Power's* 12 from the IndyCar Series instead of the font Team Penske uses in NASCAR. I miss Bestwick. I miss Petree. Put them with Dale Jarett on a broadcast team together again. They were one of the best coverage teams I had the honor of listening to cover NASCAR races. That's what I miss the most from the ESPN run of 2007-2014.
This video just reminded me how much I hated Disney's idea that instead of scores & highlights... SportsCenter all had to have their own identities (Particularly "The Six" in which Jemele Hill got a way to get on her initial soapbox... Which subsequently lasted as long any Katie Nolan show), and the network itself became unwatchable outside of live games. Also, NASCAR fans are the most immediate to "Love" or "Hate" anything... And when they get to hate, they don't come back... The initial version of "NASCAR NOW" should have gone the RPM2Night route, but instead they doomed it from the start with having Erik Kuselias host it... As the way of them trying to graduate him out of their radio platform... And it was horrid. Suzy Kolber... Different scenario... As much respect as I have for Suzy as being one of the best MNF sideline reporters ever, her hosting "Countdown" made ZERO sense other than "The Mouse" trying to get more of their talent exposure... NASCAR has, is, and always will be the "guinea pig" sport for television and the ratings grab (maybe) for most networks... TBS, TNN, Prime Network, FX, Speedvision/SPEED, and countless others have covered the sport at one point as a way to drum their ratings up to look good to the cable providers when it comes to arguing over money... Once the numbers are good enough, on to the next the sport goes. FS1 and NBCSN are no different... However, FS1 has failed to find an audience period and is on about its third network programming focus since its original premise of recreating the original espn2 "The Duece" look failed horribly. Bestwick should've been the lead man from the start... Period. However, I think Benny getting sick and passing from Cancer in early 2007 caused a shake up too... I have a hard time believing in 2005 when the new deal was announced that Benny wasn't approached to come back... Especially since Allen, along with Dave Burns who already had one stint with the mouse were previously at Turner/NBC. You could... Also blame the ESPN Busch/Nationwide exclusive deal for ruining the series, but that's another video for another day.
With nascar, ESPN ran head first into a brick wall, broke its nose, and then got mad at the wall. I hope that if they do get the rights to nascar, that they do actually care about the sport.
Never liked Rusty and did enjoy DJ !!! JP was enjoyable and overall liked ESPN ! Beswick was Numero Uno ! The Big Cheeses wanted to turn all of the viewers to their way of thinking 🤔 is exactly what killed NASCAR on ESPN ! Their was nothing wrong with having many different mindsets watching but they wanted everyone to think their way !! Wrong !!
Im still pissed when they didn't get a single angle of elliot sadler's pocono crash after saying right before that that they have the best camera man and saying Kurt Bush was getting the worst of it.
Allen Bestwick was the saving grace of ESPN's 2nd stint because aside from him the rest of the broadcasting crew were about as entertaining as watching grass grow. Andy Petree and Dale Jarrett were terrible in the booth and Marty Reid was a downright embarrassment. When all 3 of them got together, it was just a trifecta of agonizing boredom.
UTree pretty much explains why in his 'Revisiting ESPN' video he did a week or two ago. He didn't mention their '07-'14 NASCAR run in it, but, to quote Marty, he 'hit the head on the nail'. They went woke. Simple as that.
After watching it back I understand what hes saying even more. Utree said the same about them getting the sec contract. Its same with nascar most of the diehard fans dont care about the political side of espn
Hey, in Marty Reed's defenese for the Elliot Sadler crash. Carl Edwards goes sailing into the catch fence: Mike Joy: "And that destroyed the front end of Nemans car!" Plus, the poor guy has called like 2 or 3 races with fatal accidents and almost another one with Geoff Bodine so i can cut him a little slack for the goof ups
I thought Bestwick was replaced with Weber in 2005 because Bestwick broke his leg playing hockey and had to miss some races, much to the chagrin of NBC execs...
ESPN 1981-2000 Success ESPN 2007-2014 FAIL They had no clue how to cover it. Putting some people in places like on NASCAR Now with hosts that knew nothing of the sport. Putting Bestwick into the booth was so much better during last years of contract.
I blame Marty Reid. His calls of the 2010 Chase had one good moment (at Texas, I am a Denny Hamlin fan) but he was god awful. Bestwick was awesome though!!!
The first stint with NASCAR on ESPN was very good with Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett and Benny Parsons and they cared about the sport and its fans and even had that send-off which was to me the end of the NASCAR that I remember most. When NASCAR on ESPN came back ESPN was at a whole different level and they got guys who were more personalities and stereotypes than actual people who cover a race. They were also covering too many sports and there way too many scheduling conflicts with college football, college basketball, pro baseball all of that occurring during their stint of broadcasting and baseball games can take a while with extra innings and college football games can run over. Also, ESPN's agenda changed from covering sports to covering stories and social and political issues involving sports. Then with motorsports they just dumbed the coverage down and acted like fans had never seen a race before and moving races to other channels and such really showed that ESPN really put motorsports on the back burner unless there was a fight or a big wreck or something. Once they got Allen Bestwick things really got better because he was from the NBC broadcasts and the sad part is, once they got the right guy they dumped the sport entirely.
All I can remember about ESPN is the 2014 Texas night race. I was upset because they payed more attention to the fight instead of Jimmie Johnson lol. Other than that I was too young to remember
I think NBC is going the same way as ESPN - Rick Allen, Jeff Burton and Steve Letrate need to get out of the booth. Put Dale Jarrett with Dale Jr and add maybe Dave Burns. As for Fox, Clint Boyer seems to be doing well and Mike Joy is very good - Jeff Gordon is the weak link in that crew.
Plus the final ABC race at Charlotte missed the opening laps due to various events went overtime or was still going in regulation at the time. On the other ESPN channels Ultimately you could only access it via the PRN radio coverage.
This era is quite fascinating. I sometimes go back and watch the old 2nd races from my home track, being Auto Club, from '07-'10. Unfortunately it didn't take me long to realize that those broadcasts were very, very underwhelming, and more often than not, just plainly disappointing. The 2007 running of the Auto Club summer race especially falls into that category, as the telecast of it just didn't fit right with me. I have to say that I'm glad that the company isn't a part of NASCAR right now, otherwise we'd be getting some grade-a BS crap alike to the blunders of the '07 & '08 Chase races @ Kansas & Phoenix. Hopefully things can change soon but it's unlikely that that will not happen.
Yep same ESPN overall are awful right now just like CNN and MSNBC and if they ever came back with a large of races on ESPN it would be doomed to fail again.
Allen Bestwick was the Bob Jenkins of the 2000’s whether it was with NBC or ESPN. Thank god for Allen Bestwick. He is the voice of NASCAR. He was even the best at MRN
The first stint ESPN had with NASCAR was phenomenal. Or at least that is what I was told by older NASCAR fans. And from personal experience, espn was my least favorite network to watch NASCAR when they returned. NBC is currently going through the same thing espn did: have amazing coverage and memorable moments and personalities the first time around. The second time they try to recapture that magic they once had and all they can accomplish is mediocre to average quality broadcasts.
ESPN used to have the best auto racing coverage on the planet. During the summer in the 80's and 90's sometimes 4 nights of primetime in a week would be some form of auto racing.
@@SAVikingSA now the only motorsport they have is F1 and it's not even their own original coverage. Instead they rely totally on the Sky Sports global feed for their coverage.
NBC's coverage is beyond terrible, the announcers except Dale Jr range from really bad to just meh, Steve Letarte being the "explain it" guy literally explaining every little thing all race gets on my nerves, they dump races if they go long, and in general I feel as if they don't care and I feel they are talking down to me by explaining everything.
if CBS returns to broadcast Nascar they probably would put races on Nickelodeon, like how they put a NFL Game on Nickelodeon. Thinking about it I would want to see what Nickelodeon's graphics package would be for a Nascar race.
I will say I was fortunate enough to watch nascar on espn from 2011-2014 when it was decent but I still think any nascar broadcast is better than the worst broadcast partner TNT they coverage in my opinion was 10 times worst than the worst espn
ESPN tried to do everything with all sports and by overlapping each other ended up just showing parts of events..There's full quarters or periods of sports not parts..Just Sayin' !!
One thing you forgot to tell on the video was ABC's good morning America how they talk about Tony Stewart after the Kevin Ward death. They talk about Tony Stewart like he was worst human being in the world and nobody from ESPN defined him.
I disagree with a lot of these comments. Yes, ESPN was bad from 2007-2010. But when Bestwick came in the booth in 2011, everything changed. Bestwick, Petree, and Jarrett were a fantastic trio, they had excellent pit reporters including Dr. Jerry Punch, and the studio with Briscoe, Daugherty, and Rusty was really good. In addition, ESPN promoted the heck out of the sport across all of the ESPN family of networks. The problem is that ESPN's second stint got off to such a horrible start, that the damage was done. But I would argue and debate that ESPN's coverage from 2011-2014 is better than what FOX and NBC currently offer us. ESPN gets too bad of a reputation among NASCAR fans, and I'd actually like them back in 2024.
What do you remember most about NASCAR’s second stint with ESPN from 2007-2014?
Jimmie Johnson's 6th Championship
Jeff Gordon Clint Bowyer brawl at Phoenix
Watching COT races as a little kid, it was the nascar I knew growing up
Allen Bestwick being amazing.
gordon vs keselowski
ESPN back then: Actual care for NASCAR
*ESPN now:* _Dave Blaney for Penske Motorsports wins the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta_ lol
Is that actually true?
They have done all 3 of those mistakes. Not sure if they did them all at once though
@@TheIceberg wow thats ridiculous
Oh brother
@@thecouch4702 ESPN did something similar to that at the 2020 Blue Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500, when they went over the top three finishers, they showed 2nd place which was Ryan Blaney as Dave Blaney, with an image of Dave Blaney and to top it off they used the Penske IndyCar 12 font
ESPN’s disrespect towards NASCAR turned me off of the channel for good. Their sports shows used to be informative, but now all they have are loudmouth analysts who have the most moronic takes. “Controversial takes get clicks” seems to be the underlying theme for ESPN these days.
ESPN had some legendary commentary. Some not so good. But, they did leave a lasting impact, thank you for Allen Bestwick.
He pretty much carried them
Idk, like yes I feel they were iconic and when I think NASCAR from my childhood these guys and then some were a big part of it. But I just always felt fox sports has had the best commentary because they all just seemed like one big family with how they would joke around with Steve Bernyes and the old man jokes with Dr Dick Bergen. And now with both Jeff and Clint in the booth it's like being at the track with your buddies shooting the s*** watching a race at home. I would love to see Harvick join them when he retires I feel those 3 would be NASCAR Broadcasting GOLD
It was a huge mistake that they took Allen Bestwick out of the booth.
@@jdtractorman7445 Bestwick sucked. I liked the old lineup from the 80s to the 90s.
How is Allen Bestwick part of ESPN’s “impact”, he was a Turner guy, just happened to work for ESPN for a while
What I hated the most about the second stint with ESPN was the commentators talked like no one had ever seen a NASCAR race before. They dumbed it down. They also concentrated too much one one driver, like Jimmie Johnson far too much. There was one race at Texas where he crashed early and all the attention was focused on him. Few people remember Jeff Gordon won because that got very little air time. Going more political and moving races all the time didn't help matters.
First. Just like Gordon in the late 90s, Johnson was the hottest driver at the time in the late 2000s.
Second Gordon didn’t win that race. Him and Johnson finished 1-2 in the Spring Texas Race.
Third Johnson wrecked in the Chase Texas race fighting with Mark Martin who didn’t have a championship and Johnson was coming off of 3 straight championships. Nobody else was making headlines at that time plus Johnson won 3 of the first Chase races and didn’t even finish outside the 8 until the Texas race. That’s how good that 48 team was that year.
What do you expect from non-believers!
A child fan could tell you what drafting is. We didn't need it told to us 4 times a race. I know how plate racing works, you know how plate racing works, we all know how plate racing works. I don't need a cut-a-way car to tell me how air moves on a car. It was so insulting they assumed we know nothing about racing.
For sure. Watching racing when I was little they explained it enough to where you knew what was going on. And didn't treat you like a 2 year old that has never watched a race. Wasn't just ESPN. It was TNN, CBS, TBS, the announcers were there to lead you along. Not to ram the same old nonsense into your head.
Whenever ESPN mentions NASCAR, they make the most idiotic mistakes.
And they wave their banner all over the place
Ik they were showing highlights From Dover 2020 and called Jimmie Johnson “Jim Johnson”
Modern ESPN is a joke. When 95% of sports center is focused on two sports that aren’t even in season (NBA & NFL), you have a problem. Hell they barely even show highlights from all the MLB games now.
Sadly, it also happens with the NHL. ESPN became like a NBA-NFL network 24/7 + some NCAA football. I get it it's mainstream, but the other major leagues are ignored or are taken as a joke.
Even the hockey!! But if lebron james breathes we have to know. If tiger woods is gonna play and he’s plus 27 on the weekend we have to know. And if Tom Brady announces retirement we’ll never stop hearing it.
Plus they go out of their way to make uninteresting sports like the WNBA out to have legit highlights and breaking news.
@@RichieWilliams97I Don't Hate The WNBA In My Opinion.
I get f1 on espn
Allen Bestwick is what made ESPN bearable from 2011-2014.
He's really one of the best commentators
I want Bestwick to come back.
Replace Allen with Allen on NBC
@@S.K.R.E.Inc. not that I dislike Rick Allen, but no one can trump the OG Allen!
True
ESPN:
Drivers to win the final 2 races of the season and the championship:
Chase Elliott 2020
Kevin Harvick 2014
*Carl Edwards 2010*
i'm not making this up lol espn actually showed a graphic like this once
I remember seeing that after the fact and just shaking my head
It goes that ESPN doesn’t care about NASCAR
Carl didn’t win the championship in 2010....
@@allabouthewaves4354 yeah thats what makes it hilarious
@T.J. Arnhold 2010. 2011 was Stewart.
"Nothing any of these guys can do, that hammering you hear, is the sound of the nail of the final *erm* coffin on the chase contenders' hopes of upsetting Jimmie Johnson" - Marty Reid
It's sad, Marty Reid's highlight in his career was when dan wheldon died and said something good and memorable in the end of the race. Other than that Marty sucked
I still don't understand why they never hired Allen Bestwick as lead commentator from the very start when they came back. I'm not saying it would have solved all their problems, but it would have made their coverage a lot more tolerable. Half the time Jerry Punch sounded like he just didn't want to be there.
Jerry Punch was pretty decent though much better than what Vince Welch was on some Xfinity series races.
ESPN promised Dr. Punch he'd have a prominent role if they ever got the rights back. They talk about it in the ESPN oral history book.
It was a very painful day when they lost the rights, so they wanted to do right by Doc if he stuck around through the "dark ages" so to speak. He was the only guy from the old team who never left, so it made sense to bring him on as the lead.
@@danielwest9955
Punch was that loyal to ESPN.
He never left the network.
I can’t think ESPN without him with NASCAR like Jay Bilas without College Basketball.
Jerry was a good fill-in for Bob in the SpeedWorld era, but as the regular "voice" of the broadcast, he just didn't convey the energy level necessary for the job. Always a great pit reporter though, and having him in the pits was a blessing for all the crews in the event of a significant injury.
What pisses me off personally is that ESPN did not bring back its rock of Gibraltar, Mr. Bob Jenkins, in some way, shape, or form for their 2007-2014 second NASCAR stint. Also, ESPN completely threw out the window all of the things it did that made it so majestic to watch the first time around. Ironic in that I do not know exactly what the old ESPN did that fans loved so much.
Jenkins' wife had taken ill. And now Bob has his own illness.
@@topofthecircle but ESPN had been systematically demoting Speedworld people and turning motorsports into a soap opera for several years by 2007. Back in 2005 Paul Page was replaced on IndyCar by ABC sideline reporter Todd Harris of all people, who spent the entire Indy 500 slobbering over Danica Patrick in much the same way that ESPN would slobber over Jimmie and Jeff all race long
@@topofthecircle RIP Bob
They televised nascar and that's all !!
Having watched 3 Indy 500’s with Bestwick in the booth, he was a damn good commentator. I’d gladly have him back in NASCAR.
He is the ultimate professional. Nobody is any better in any sport.
Hopefully he can commentate SRX
Him and Wally Dallenbach were always great together along with Benny Parsons.
He was great. To me he was the voice of NASCAR in the summer.
The Gen 4 was so awesome. The paint schemes of the early to mid 2000’s were the absolute best.
Everything in NASCAR from early to mid 2000s was the best
This is why nascar failed. They listened to idiots like you who think paint schemes are cool.
@@cpm324 but paint schemes are cool...
One main reason: They took racing off broadcast TV. The reason NASCAR was 2nd to the NFL was because you could find both on regular TV by just flipping channels on a Sunday afternoon.
It's no coincidence ratings went down big around 2010. That's when ESPN pulled *everything* but three races off ABC. As a kid growing up without cable, I literally went a half-decade without seeing Watkins Glen, Fall Talladega or the Homestead finale.
They did some serious damage to the "casual" audience who just found NASCAR by having it so readily available.
Yep I never had cable or Internet as a kid in through the 2000's and early 2010's. Whenever they had the majority of there Cup races on the ESPN cable network it was never explained why like I really wanted to watch some races with literally nothing in the months of July or August other than baseball.
Sometimes when Football started there season ABC had no sports scheduled could've used it to show NASCAR races but they didn't.. Pfft
in the 90s NASCAR races were more on cable than on OTA broadcast tv. TNN.TNT and ESPN for the most part. i only remember a handful of races on actual brodcast networks in the 90s
@@americanbadass88 Right. The point is the ratings were at their highest when they moved mainly to OTA.
It's no coincidence the ratings peaked in '05. That was the middle of the TV deal.
Bob Jenkins and BP were the best NASCAR duo of all time! The excitement Jenkins brought to the booth and the knowledge of Benny Parsons have not been matched since.
Plus throw in Gentleman Ned, and that booth has not been equaled. Although, the current Fox booth is certainly heading in that direction.
@@bluorangefyre Dick Bergeren and Dr Jerry were tremendous as well.
Unfortunately we aren't gonna see any of them back in the booth. Bob Jenkins is dead now.
Benny is a nascar legend . He truly knows the cars inside out and speaks very well .
R.I.P. Benny Parsons you are missed in all things nascar.
Bob, Ned and Benny. Dr. Jerry in the pits. I'd put them up against any broadcast crew in sports. A legendary combination that was alot more responsible for the growth of Nascar in the 90's than given credit for.
I was happy when Alan Bestwick got his old job back - I thought NBC replacing him with Bill Weber was a poor decision.
LoL I'm probably the only one that thought Bill Weber was decent but I agree they probably couldn't have replaced Allen Bestwick will Bill Weber for the Cup races at least.
Still way better than guys we got now
Yeah, that was a garbage decision
@@packisbetter90 Yeah Rick Allen is definitely an F grade commentator while Bill Weber is in between D or C. Vince Welch is also another F grade for me as well.
Weber should’ve called Busch Series races only at time.
Like what Adam Alexander does now with FOX.
What it came down to was that Disney wanted ABC Sports/ESPN to cut costs so it could make more money and the corporation went through and purged all the long time people at the studio and the new management did not like motorsports at all. Once the management changed they just let NASCAR wither until the contract was up so they could purge NASCAR along with all other motorsports.
That’s how NHRA landed at FOX and NBC got full IndyCar contract as I predicted back in 2011.
If I were the heads of NBC/Universal.
With NHL back at ESPN and ABC.
I’d reup with IndyCar.
Keep Indy 500.
You got that and Derby.
Of course NASCAR is basically lead in for SNF in Fall.
Before it transitions to full on Notre Dame coverage and Sunday Night Football there on out.
But ESPN putting more money into the coverage actually made it worse, by far the worst years of the run were the years ESPN spent the most money on it. The beauty of Speedworld was that it covered the races as a sporting event, not as some sort of cultural event.
They think of NASCAR as a joke
ESPN's biggest sport has always been basketball I swear.
@@packisbetter90 Laker's games only get 1-3 million viewers on ESPN
They think of everything but the NFL and the NBA as a joke.
@@shawa666 you forgot Alabama football to
@@f-22raptor56 roll tide.
ESPN straight up made fun of NASCAR and drivers. Still to this day have no respect for our sport.
it's too white for 'em.
not a sport
The first run of ESPN was a great coverage
But the second run of ESPN was just very biased and very mediocre
Sounds like Danica’s Racing Career....
Great IndyCar
Can’t Make it Passed Lap 100 NASCAR
Facts. They never explained why they moved over 10 races off ABC to decided to only stick with 3 races on big ABC.
NASCAR was one of the sports that made ESPN. 2ND contract era ESPN didn’t care.
@@runrafarunthebestintheworld
Apparently, they said that ABC attracts more women viewers than men. Lamest excuse ever.
@@alextv2944 damn what an excuse that's pathetic then that must mean nbc has more women viewers yet ABC puts the entire nba finals series on abc. Pfft
They did not care about motorsport as a whole. At least NASCAR got off before ESPN went to total shit. Just look at IndyCar between 2015-2018. They didn't care about racing, they only cared about the one day that made the network money.
espn only likes tall guys running around the dining room throwing balls into hoops.
Nobody:
Andy Petree: man that’s a hard lick......every broadcast
Great video 100% agree
It’s on TH-cam somewhere, but I remember an ESPN reporter saying Jimmie Johnson was a Roush driver.
There are still plenty gaffs like that to go around today on Fox and NBC. Mike Joy and Rick Allen are terrible. Jeff Gordon lately has sounded like he has forgot most of what he knew. TV broadcasters are not even close Ewing in the same league as MRN and PRN radio. Fox and NBC should drop their crews and pay MRN and PRN to do their broadcast.
@@toby7291 i like Mike Joy though
@@coltsforsuperbowllvii6827 just listen closely to these guys and what they say. They are commentating a race they aren’t even watching. The TV booth product is getting really bad on both networks.
Towards the end of their most recent contract, it almost seemed as if Disney showed more Nationwide series races on ABC than they did Sprint Cup races (which were almost exclusively on ESPN).
Facts
ESPN pretty much stopped caring I think after they lost the rights the first time in 2000. The second run (2007-2014) was never as passionate or enthusiastic, despite the later addition of Allen Bestwick to the broadcast booth.
As an F1 fan I agree with you about ESPN because when ESPN first had F1 from 1989-1997 they had excellent commentators in Bob Varsha and David Hobbs and were passionate about the sport, especially during the Prost-Senna rivalry of the early 90's. However when ESPN regained the rights to F1 back in 2017 after 20 years away, they didn't bother to bring back either Varsha or Hobbs nor did they decide bring over Hobb's F1 colleagues from NBC, Leigh Diffey and Steve Matchett. Instead they decided to rely entirely on the global feed provided by Sky Sports out of the UK and not bother to even send their own camera crews or a commentary team to the races. Whenever I watch F1 on ESPN, I get the impression that I am watching Sky Sports instead of something original that is produced by ESPN despite the fact that ESPN heavily promotes F1 in ads and features them more on SportsCenter than they did when they first had the rights. The F1 contract expires next season and I hope another network gets the rights just so that we get original and authentic coverage here in the US.
@@chrisguardiano6143 Absolutely agreed. But NBC declined to renew because of F1's new streaming service (are people going to pay to watch the race on NBC Sports, or on F1TV?). Maybe, now that the networks have their own streaming services (Peacock, Paramount Plus, Disney+) with uber content, F1TV won't be seen as quite the threat to ratings & customer base as it was in 2017.
@@NotSteveCook whoever gets the F1 rights for next season and beyond will likely put more races on streaming especially NBC with Peacock now that NBCSN is going away after the Olympics in September. The same can be said for Paramount+ and CBS. I don't mind this as long as NBC and CBS present F1 in a way that is original and authentic and is less reliant on the Sky Sports global feed.
It's clear ESPN gives no craps about NASCAR when they show Chase Elliott's picture and they say it's "Jeff Gordon"
i think they purposely drove nascar in the dirt. trying to ruin it. so they get more views on the other sporst. even back then ESPN was all about race bs drama. i mean black and white.
I agree, especially with that last point about ESPNs culture shift in what it wanted to represent and they thought NASCAR didn't line up with that. The culture shift is also what has lead to the networks downward trend too.
Why did it fail? Easy. ESPN was run by people who didn't seem to value motorsports. I'm not saying NASCAR is the top priority of FOX or NBC now, but you can tell they legitimately care about putting on something special, even if FOX is beginning to lose that magic a bit now. Say what you want about NBC Sports' coverage and Rick Allen, but I get the feeling they legitimiately care for motorsports, and see it as one of the things that makes NBC Sports worth it. ESPN never cared that much. Shuffling races off of broadcast TV, not providing an alternative for missing race content, and not showing a ton of love to the sport. I mean I can count the amount of NASCAR This is SportsCenter ads on my fingers. And with the way ESPN has gotten worse since NASCAR left them, I don't want them back, because even if they aren't as cheap as possible, they'll screw it up.
Look at how IndyCar’s ABC run ended, Bestwick was also completely left out to dry due to two of the driest color commentators possible
@@insertcolorherehawk3761 And don't even get me started on what they did to the NHRA.
That's because ESPN and most "sports media" only care about American football and basketball, maybe baseball if you're lucky. You NEVER hear about motorsports or any other sport that isn't one of those 3. Hell, college-level football and basketball games get more coverage than motorsports.
The hilarious thing is the first live event on ESPN ever was an auto race
It was a softball game, not an auto race.
It’s hilarious that people can’t do 30 seconds of researching before posting a “fact.”
@@sludge4125 slow pitch softball is a sport like beer pong is a sport
@@SAVikingSA Good point. 🤪🤪🤪
I remember those times finding out a race would air on TNT or ESPN, since my family doesn't have cable. Thank goodness this is the online era.
Bob + Ned + Benny: easily the best NASCAR broadcasting team of all time.
I remember fondly the days of Bob, Benny and Ned. Great, great times and wonderful commentary.
Man, I miss Bob Jenkings calling races. Prayers to him!
Bob, Benny, Ned, Dave, these guys were really like family to me (and many others).
The problem was, is that they DIDN’T care about NASCAR enough to put it on free tv, where everyone could get it. Fox during that time put all of their races on free tv, with the exception of the all-Star race on Speed/FS1, as it’s not a points race, and it’s always been on cable networks to begin with. TNT I could understand, as they didn’t have NBC as their partner, but there was no excuse for ESPN not putting more NASCAR races on free tv.
Off topic but I really miss speed channel, they really cared about the sport and I think all the teams respected the channel and reporter. They didn't get to fancy and kept it real.
“The nail of the final coffin”😂😂😂
as if its only a temporary coffin 😂😂😂😂
6:22 I'll never understand why NBC did this. Allen Bestwick was and still is one of the best play-by-play guys in auto racing. Bill Weber was one of the best pit reporters. Why swap them? It made absolutely no sense.
Bill Webber is still a legend, especially for his commentary in those Nascar Thunder games
and they moved the coverage to ESPN 8, the OCHO!! Thanks Pepper....I feel shocked!!
the OCHO should really be a thing!
Marty Reid makes Rick Allen look like Mike Joy lol
We want SPEED Channel back!
Coming January 2023,The Speed Racing Network is back (Now Streaming on HULU)
sorry but if its not on directy im not in.i dont do streaming.@@muhammadwahyuhidayat21498
Bestwick was the best on ESPN when it came back. Still think NASCAR coverage as a whole was the best from 2001 to 2006 though with FOX and NBC. Of course Bestwick was at NBC too with other solid announcers like BP, Dallenbach, and Weber. FOX with DW, Joy, Mcreynolds in the booth with Meyers and Hammond in the Hollywood Hotel was all time favorite. CBS was good before as well
For one they got rid of the ESPN Speedworld theme song. That got everybody pumped up.
The problem was simple: ESPN was a different animal when NASCAR returned in 2007. Stick-and-ball sports, in particular NBA and NCAA, became top priority along with the 'embrace debate' shows that have dominated their programming for over a decade. It wasn't the same as it was in 2000. The NASCAR commentary team did the best they could, but I don't think they had the proper support because the folks at Bristol, CT are heavily biased towards football and basketball. For example, Nationwide races seemed to be in the way of college football every year as its pre-race shows and even some race starts were moved to ESPN Classic until a football game was over.
The reason why ESPN moved most of their races from ABC to ESPN in 2010 was it was their way to avoid Cup races being pre-empted for ABC programming like America's Funniest Videos. However, that didn't make sense because 2010 was also the first year of the standardized start times that kept races away from the 6 PM local news timeslot. I feel that because most of the second-half was on cable in 2010-2014 that it didn't provide enough leverage for NASCAR to advocate more races on NBC instead of NBCSN in the current deal. I agree the move from network and cable contributed to the ratings decline.
They should've had Bestwick, Wallace/Jarrett and Petree from the start. By taking so long to get the booth right, that's what caused the failure.
Bob Jenkins will always be the 2nd best analyst right behind Ken Squier. Both are absolute legends.
Bob Jenkins, Benny Parsons and Ned Jarrett were the OG for NASCAR/ESPN back in the day. Best commentary NASCAR ever had, IMO. (But I'll add, I LOVE Dale Jr. on NBC.)
5:27 I don't care what anyone says, this is my all-time favorite quote to listen to in all my years watching the sport 😂
I remember in 2013 Kyle Larson car almost went in to the stands. There were several big accidents in this race. That following Monday Mike Golic from Mike and Mike in the morning was talking about the accident and Golic said I wondered how they were going to race on Sunday when so many cars were torn up on Saturday. ESPN and Golic were crucified for this and he had to make an apology live on the air after a commercial break.
The problem with networks coming back, is thinking the previous version is coming back. People expected the Bob, Ned and Benny show when ESPN came back. Same with the nostalgia for people wanting CBS back. It wouldn't be the Ken Squier version.
I was one of those people in 2006 to 2007.
It has more to do with the power struggles and accompanying massive changes in philosophy within ESPN/ABC Sports from 2004-2007.
ESPN bucked NASCAR over midrace.
NBC: Hold my beer
*FOX:* Hold my beer cooler
@@Ultimate23Dragon Never forget that they aired a race on Fox News, although NBC isn’t perfect either with them airing races on CNBC, but I still prefer NBC’s broadcasts over Fox.
@@Flamingbro69 yeah now NBC is gonna be moving some races to USA network which has some similarities to the TNT and NBC partnership.
@@runrafarunthebestintheworld I honestly don't understand why NBC is shutting down NBCSN.
@@Flamingbro69 yeah me neither. I guess they're struggling with finances but of course every TV Network is struggling with there money.
I guess it's the fact NBCSN isn't in more cable packages and households and there viewership is taking hits or its the Peacock effect combined.
I think ESPN really shot themselves in the foot not airing NASCAR enough of OTA and basic cable like ABC. I remember being able to switch over to ESPN2 and watch with my family but my best friend who I spoke with at school the next day was really mad because he is a huge Jimmy Johnson fan and missed it.
Agreed 'berg💯
Though they did get to have one of the greatest Championship runs in NASCAR history in 2011 when smoke took it from carl edwards💨💨💨
0:00, one of Bob Jenkins best lines ever, RIP Bob Jenkins
ESPN: Every Sport Preempts NASCAR
Well, they are not wrong.
NHRA got the shaft WAY worse...
The world is cultured change! ESPN used to be sport center highlights after highlights, but now politics and less sports. I want sport highlights not culture change or politics!
I loved watching nascar on NBC and TNT from 2001to 2006 and I loved Allen, Wally, and Benny, then when ESPN took over, I was pissed and I couldn't stand the announcers. They really ruined my spirit of nascar those years. But when Allen Bestwick took over as announcer, it got a little better. But now I'm happy NBC came back because now we got Dale Jr in the booth talking about those giant ass spoilers.
I vividly remember the ESPN days of NASCAR. But what I do still have fresh in my mind is NBCSN’s promo with Nick Offerman, saying that there coming back to broadcast NASCAR. that was an awesome promo
I Have A Feeling ESPN Is Losing It's Touch...
ESPN sucked and to this day still sucks. They treated NASCAR like it really wasn’t a sport, and thus ESPN never really cared for NASCAR. They hardly ever cover NASCAR to this day! They don’t deserve to air NASCAR ever again.
NASCAR is headed in the wrong direction, all the stage races, all the rule changes and all the new announcers that don’t know shit about racing, I’m laughing my ass off at what’s going on at Bristol this weekend, I’ll bet my ass SMOKE ( Tony) is really enjoying it.
I remember hearing about the 2014 Bank of America 500 debacle. if you all know the one I'm talking about, then you know where this is going, but if you never heard this story, strap in, it's a doozy :
Alright here's the set up - race 5 of the 2014 NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup. We're halfway through the Challenger 12 (I always viewed "contender" as a lower rank than "challenger") in this new foudangled Chase for the Sprint Cup knock out grid (Which i despise to this very day with EVERY. SINGLE. FLAW. EXPOSED) and it's shaping up to be an absolute clobber fest for the title with names like Kevin Havrick, Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jr, and Kyle Busch among others trying to take title for themselves.
This race is slated to be on ABC that Saturday night (as in the main ABC network. Who needs cable?! WE GOT THIS!) NASCAR fans tune into ABC... and are welcomed to NCAA football. Hey, wait what gives?! Where the hell is the Bank Of America 500?! Well... it was relegated to cable. As in ESPN. (also, getting dumped for god damn college football. Does THAT sound familiar to anyone reading this comment?)
Think about it like this - All the good times we had on ESPN from the first race back ESPN in 2007 to Paul Menard's shock wave 2011 Brickyard 400 win to Marcos Ambrose VS Brad Keselwoski at Watkins Glen in 2012 to Harvick finally winning the title in 2014 and every good moment in between? Undone by the executives at every single god damn turn. What started as a triumphant return in 2007 had become the court jester slaying the corrupted king in 2014. And ESPN is STILL dropping on a downward spiral.
I've seen the fuck ups they've done in other people talking about it. And yes, that includes a photo of the Martinsville spring race 2020 where they used *Will Power's* 12 from the IndyCar Series instead of the font Team Penske uses in NASCAR.
I miss Bestwick. I miss Petree. Put them with Dale Jarett on a broadcast team together again. They were one of the best coverage teams I had the honor of listening to cover NASCAR races. That's what I miss the most from the ESPN run of 2007-2014.
Actually they started airing the race on lap 26 and NASCAR threw a yellow just so they can do a recap of the first 25 laps
NASCAR on ESPN is the reason of why the drivers started to HATE Jenna Fryer's AP gang and reporters.
I can't even think of the last time I watched ESPN on purpose. Screw ESPN.
This video just reminded me how much I hated Disney's idea that instead of scores & highlights... SportsCenter all had to have their own identities (Particularly "The Six" in which Jemele Hill got a way to get on her initial soapbox... Which subsequently lasted as long any Katie Nolan show), and the network itself became unwatchable outside of live games.
Also, NASCAR fans are the most immediate to "Love" or "Hate" anything... And when they get to hate, they don't come back...
The initial version of "NASCAR NOW" should have gone the RPM2Night route, but instead they doomed it from the start with having Erik Kuselias host it... As the way of them trying to graduate him out of their radio platform... And it was horrid. Suzy Kolber... Different scenario... As much respect as I have for Suzy as being one of the best MNF sideline reporters ever, her hosting "Countdown" made ZERO sense other than "The Mouse" trying to get more of their talent exposure...
NASCAR has, is, and always will be the "guinea pig" sport for television and the ratings grab (maybe) for most networks... TBS, TNN, Prime Network, FX, Speedvision/SPEED, and countless others have covered the sport at one point as a way to drum their ratings up to look good to the cable providers when it comes to arguing over money... Once the numbers are good enough, on to the next the sport goes. FS1 and NBCSN are no different... However, FS1 has failed to find an audience period and is on about its third network programming focus since its original premise of recreating the original espn2 "The Duece" look failed horribly.
Bestwick should've been the lead man from the start... Period. However, I think Benny getting sick and passing from Cancer in early 2007 caused a shake up too... I have a hard time believing in 2005 when the new deal was announced that Benny wasn't approached to come back... Especially since Allen, along with Dave Burns who already had one stint with the mouse were previously at Turner/NBC.
You could... Also blame the ESPN Busch/Nationwide exclusive deal for ruining the series, but that's another video for another day.
With nascar, ESPN ran head first into a brick wall, broke its nose, and then got mad at the wall. I hope that if they do get the rights to nascar, that they do actually care about the sport.
this just popped up in the algorithm, right after the deal with espn and srx was announced
Never liked Rusty and did enjoy DJ !!!
JP was enjoyable and overall liked ESPN ! Beswick was Numero Uno !
The Big Cheeses wanted to turn all of the viewers to their way of thinking 🤔 is exactly what killed NASCAR on ESPN ! Their was nothing wrong with having many different mindsets watching but they wanted everyone to think their way !! Wrong !!
They had Marty Smith and Ryan McGee. I’m not sure how you don’t give both of them a bigger part in the coverage.
Marty could’ve been to NASCAR what Tom Rinaldi was on ESPN College Football.
Im still pissed when they didn't get a single angle of elliot sadler's pocono crash after saying right before that that they have the best camera man and saying Kurt Bush was getting the worst of it.
It was a tale of two halves: 2007-2010 left a lot to be desired, but 2011-2014 was much improved
Allen Bestwick was the saving grace of ESPN's 2nd stint because aside from him the rest of the broadcasting crew were about as entertaining as watching grass grow. Andy Petree and Dale Jarrett were terrible in the booth and Marty Reid was a downright embarrassment. When all 3 of them got together, it was just a trifecta of agonizing boredom.
UTree pretty much explains why in his 'Revisiting ESPN' video he did a week or two ago. He didn't mention their '07-'14 NASCAR run in it, but, to quote Marty, he 'hit the head on the nail'. They went woke. Simple as that.
After watching it back I understand what hes saying even more. Utree said the same about them getting the sec contract. Its same with nascar most of the diehard fans dont care about the political side of espn
Hey, in Marty Reed's defenese for the Elliot Sadler crash.
Carl Edwards goes sailing into the catch fence:
Mike Joy: "And that destroyed the front end of Nemans car!"
Plus, the poor guy has called like 2 or 3 races with fatal accidents and almost another one with Geoff Bodine so i can cut him a little slack for the goof ups
Marty Reed handled the scary bits so tastefully, I never minded his commentary that much.
I thought Bestwick was replaced with Weber in 2005 because Bestwick broke his leg playing hockey and had to miss some races, much to the chagrin of NBC execs...
I just remember wishing they'd change headsets because of how much you coud hear mouth sounds when they weren't talking.
ESPN 1981-2000 Success
ESPN 2007-2014 FAIL
They had no clue how to cover it.
Putting some people in places like on NASCAR Now with hosts that knew nothing of the sport.
Putting Bestwick into the booth was so much better during last years of contract.
Very nice video. I stopped watching nascar a little after 2007 and came back in 2019. But this makes a lot of sense.
I blame Marty Reid. His calls of the 2010 Chase had one good moment (at Texas, I am a Denny Hamlin fan) but he was god awful.
Bestwick was awesome though!!!
The first stint with NASCAR on ESPN was very good with Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett and Benny Parsons and they cared about the sport and its fans and even had that send-off which was to me the end of the NASCAR that I remember most. When NASCAR on ESPN came back ESPN was at a whole different level and they got guys who were more personalities and stereotypes than actual people who cover a race. They were also covering too many sports and there way too many scheduling conflicts with college football, college basketball, pro baseball all of that occurring during their stint of broadcasting and baseball games can take a while with extra innings and college football games can run over. Also, ESPN's agenda changed from covering sports to covering stories and social and political issues involving sports. Then with motorsports they just dumbed the coverage down and acted like fans had never seen a race before and moving races to other channels and such really showed that ESPN really put motorsports on the back burner unless there was a fight or a big wreck or something. Once they got Allen Bestwick things really got better because he was from the NBC broadcasts and the sad part is, once they got the right guy they dumped the sport entirely.
All I can remember about ESPN is the 2014 Texas night race. I was upset because they payed more attention to the fight instead of Jimmie Johnson lol. Other than that I was too young to remember
ESPN had the worst announcing... Now if NBC would just get rid of rick allen.
Ikr. Pfft
I think NBC is going the same way as ESPN - Rick Allen, Jeff Burton and Steve Letrate need to get out of the booth. Put Dale Jarrett with Dale Jr and add maybe Dave Burns. As for Fox, Clint Boyer seems to be doing well and Mike Joy is very good - Jeff Gordon is the weak link in that crew.
Fox is way better than NBC now. Gordons better than any of them at NBC
Agreed, Jr and Dale Jarrett would be great
I really like the choice of background music!
I think I heard a song or 2 from NASCAR 2006 Total Team Control?
Plus the final ABC race at Charlotte missed the opening laps due to various events went overtime or was still going in regulation at the time. On the other ESPN channels Ultimately you could only access it via the PRN radio coverage.
Rip Bob Jenkins
This era is quite fascinating. I sometimes go back and watch the old 2nd races from my home track, being Auto Club, from '07-'10. Unfortunately it didn't take me long to realize that those broadcasts were very, very underwhelming, and more often than not, just plainly disappointing. The 2007 running of the Auto Club summer race especially falls into that category, as the telecast of it just didn't fit right with me. I have to say that I'm glad that the company isn't a part of NASCAR right now, otherwise we'd be getting some grade-a BS crap alike to the blunders of the '07 & '08 Chase races @ Kansas & Phoenix. Hopefully things can change soon but it's unlikely that that will not happen.
Yep same ESPN overall are awful right now just like CNN and MSNBC and if they ever came back with a large of races on ESPN it would be doomed to fail again.
Allen Bestwick was the Bob Jenkins of the 2000’s whether it was with NBC or ESPN. Thank god for Allen Bestwick. He is the voice of NASCAR. He was even the best at MRN
I got the notification while watching 2012 Watkins Glen lol
I loved the 2011-2014 ESPN booth.
Nascar now was cool but sadly only a year or so in it seemed ESPN lost interest in carrying Nascar
The first stint ESPN had with NASCAR was phenomenal. Or at least that is what I was told by older NASCAR fans. And from personal experience, espn was my least favorite network to watch NASCAR when they returned.
NBC is currently going through the same thing espn did: have amazing coverage and memorable moments and personalities the first time around. The second time they try to recapture that magic they once had and all they can accomplish is mediocre to average quality broadcasts.
ESPN used to have the best auto racing coverage on the planet. During the summer in the 80's and 90's sometimes 4 nights of primetime in a week would be some form of auto racing.
@@SAVikingSA now the only motorsport they have is F1 and it's not even their own original coverage. Instead they rely totally on the Sky Sports global feed for their coverage.
NBC's coverage is beyond terrible, the announcers except Dale Jr range from really bad to just meh, Steve Letarte being the "explain it" guy literally explaining every little thing all race gets on my nerves, they dump races if they go long, and in general I feel as if they don't care and I feel they are talking down to me by explaining everything.
if CBS returns to broadcast Nascar they probably would put races on Nickelodeon, like how they put a NFL Game on Nickelodeon. Thinking about it I would want to see what Nickelodeon's graphics package would be for a Nascar race.
Slime on the dirt track at Bristol??
I will say I was fortunate enough to watch nascar on espn from 2011-2014 when it was decent but I still think any nascar broadcast is better than the worst broadcast partner TNT they coverage in my opinion was 10 times worst than the worst espn
ESPN Cannot Afford To Put New Split Screen Commercial Breaks During Nascar Broadcast...
Even as a little kid I always liked watching the races on Fox than ANY race on ESPN
Me too, Darrell Waltrip always kept my attention.
I think the 2025 TV contract will be Fox Sports and ESPN
You Might Wanna Double Check That.....
ESPN tried to do everything with all sports and by overlapping each other ended up just showing parts of events..There's full quarters or periods of sports not parts..Just Sayin' !!
I miss the ESPN graphics for 2008-2010, remember my childhood when I start to watch NASCAR on SPEED Latin America.
Yes boy, *(Spanish on)* Siempre he amado las narraciones de tony rivera.
One thing you forgot to tell on the video was ABC's good morning America how they talk about Tony Stewart after the Kevin Ward death. They talk about Tony Stewart like he was worst human being in the world and nobody from ESPN defined him.
Stewart Friesen unnecessarily shot his mouth off about him, too.
I disagree with a lot of these comments. Yes, ESPN was bad from 2007-2010. But when Bestwick came in the booth in 2011, everything changed. Bestwick, Petree, and Jarrett were a fantastic trio, they had excellent pit reporters including Dr. Jerry Punch, and the studio with Briscoe, Daugherty, and Rusty was really good. In addition, ESPN promoted the heck out of the sport across all of the ESPN family of networks. The problem is that ESPN's second stint got off to such a horrible start, that the damage was done. But I would argue and debate that ESPN's coverage from 2011-2014 is better than what FOX and NBC currently offer us. ESPN gets too bad of a reputation among NASCAR fans, and I'd actually like them back in 2024.
That's Not Gonna Happen.