NHRA & ESPN must HATE sportsmen.

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by Bob Don

I hate to admit it, but Pinks and Passtime have made sportsman type cars a viable TV product. For whatever reason, they are just shunned by the ESPN coverage. I don't get it! There is so much down time and crap during ESPN race coverage that you could fit in the semis on in for all the eliminators and still not miss a beat on pro coverage. If memory serves, I believe the old Diamond P telecasts had the finals in all the eliminators.

Ten second cars don't look as slow on pinks because you didn't see a four second car just run. Class racing was a better show when we ran off of records so everybody was not playing games at the finish line. Nobody wants to watch that. We are just filler, and we need to get over it or find something else to do. Thirty years ago the stands didn't empty when we came up to run the way they do now. We are now, with the bogus soft indexes, not a lot better to watch that the throttle stop bracket cars.

[Chris1529]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Ten second cars don't look as slow on pinks because you didn't see a four second car just run.

my thoughts exactly

[Billy Nees]

The trouble here isn't that we're boring or don't have an audience. We see shows about disfunctional biker families, disfunctional Funny Car families, Ice Road Truckers and crab fishermen and maybe it's just me but they have managed to find an audience. The trouble is that Sportsmen haven't (or can't or won't) found anyone to put down the money to produce a show. For what advertizing costs I have to believe that a Sportsmen biased company (Jegs, Summit, Edelbrock) can't or hasn't looked into producing a Sportsmen related show in lieu of paying for the commercials. Hey, Musclecars, Hot Rod TV and Car Crazy are just half hour infomercials.
Now I'm not a TV producer by any stretch of the imagination but I'll bet that somebody in the Sportsmen community is in some way involved in TV production and can maybe explain to me why this can or can't be done.

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

The trouble here isn't that we're boring or don't have an audience. We see shows about disfunctional biker families, disfunctional Funny Car families, Ice Road Truckers and crab fishermen and maybe it's just me but they have managed to find an audience. The trouble is that Sportsmen haven't (or can't or won't) found anyone to put down the money to produce a show. For what advertizing costs I have to believe that a Sportsmen biased company (Jegs, Summit, Edelbrock) can't or hasn't looked into producing a Sportsmen related show in lieu of paying for the commercials. Hey, Musclecars, Hot Rod TV and Car Crazy are just half hour infomercials.
Now I'm not a TV producer by any stretch of the imagination but I'll bet that somebody in the Sportsmen community is in some way involved in TV production and can maybe explain to me why this can or can't be done.

OK, I guess I'll ask again. Why can't something like this be done?

[Bob Pagano]

Ted Jones with "Inside Drag Racing" mite be the only way it would happen, last episode showed 2 super comp cars and what they go through to qualifiy at a national event. Set up a show and try selling it to them, use Fletch and a new cj for contrast and show what S and SS go through at a national event. It would be a start.

[Signman]

Billy,

Money is all it takes.

Have a friend who runs limos Connecticut. Carts around executives from ESPN and being a good driver is sociable. When discussing class racing and big money bracket racing the answer was: "Great stuff but we need money to get production going and develop marketing"

The interest is there. They want to produce TV that people watch but it is money driven.

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by Signman

Billy,

Money is all it takes.

"Great stuff but we need money to get production going and develop marketing"

The interest is there. They want to produce TV that people watch but it is money driven.

Hi Frank, Ok then why can't (won't) one of the above mentioned companies (or another), in their advertizing budget, find away to do something? I know that the companies that I've mentioned already do more than enough for Sportsmen racers (Bracket racers included) but I refuse to believe that somebody won't step up.

[Randall Klein]

A reason the putrid NHRA Pro show is even on, is that cable networks have hours to "fill" with anything...I believe that ESPN only picked up NHRA after they lost NASCAR; although money is a driver, one must wonder why poker, aerobatic plane racing, bowling,strongman contests, wood chopping, LeBron, etc get on the tube....cable has a voracious appetite to show "something"

I'm probably wrong, but a concept of sportsman racing/traveloge/reality show could be as entertaining as any of the above...think travails of Fletcher (with his commentary) or "on-the-road-with-the Hills", our group is full of "characters" and human interest stories, brought to you by "California Car Cover" or Lucas Oil (they sponsor everything else), or as somone mentioned a paid info-mercial....with Dodge and Ford flexing their race heritage, maybe they could be approached

Would take someone connected along with deep pockets and time to run some concepts by the cable channels....heck if food network, and house sales can consume a whole channel, certainly an hour long sportsman show should be attractive to Speed, or any of the ESPN family....it certainly can and should be done by NHRA, but they are too shortsighted

[Alex Denysenko]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

OK, I guess I'll ask again. Why can't something like this be done?

It can be done Billy.

How do I know?

Because we did it!

USCN was broadcast on ESPN2 and it was not that expensive to produce.

Granted Ted Jones and Bret Kepner gave us a huge break, but in the grand scheme of things a monthly show can be done for peanuts by MEG with a couple of paying sponsors.

[Alan Roehrich]

Alex, the important questions are:

Could it be done again?

Would you do it again?

Would you help someone else?

Would enough racers show up?

Could it be done as a series?