Sponsors Not Shown nor Mentioned UPDATE Fox Relents: getting a ton of email on this, so let’s cover it here so I don’t get anymore email on it: as anyone noticed during Fox’s coverage of the Budweiser Shootout, when an image was showed of a car that had a sponsor that was not advertising during the broadcast, the car was shown in it’s colors, no sponsor decals. Also the announcers, Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds(who all did a nice job) only mentioned the cars by number and manufacturer, like the #3 Chevy, etc. For years CBS and TBS did the same by not mentioning the sponsor, never noticed the ‘blank’ cars on CBS. In fact the blank cars seemed to stick out more then the cars that were showed with it’s decals (#’s 8,9,20,28 for instance, their sponsors had ads during the race) As for NBC – That’s Racin’ reported a few weeks ago: Mike Wells, the director for the NBC and Turner broadcasts in the second half of the season, said there is no list of sponsor names that his announcers will be prohibited from mentioning because they haven’t paid so-called “mention money” to NASCAR. He said cars will continue to be identified as they always have been during broadcasts, and that if mentioning a sponsor’s name is the best way to call attention to a particular car, then that’s how it will be done. and from ESPN’s RPM site: At the beginning of Sunday’s Budweiser Shootout telecast, a series of graphics was used to show the starting lineup. The graphics showed a head shot of the driver along with a graphic of the car. The same was done in the postrace rundown. However, many of the cars shown in the graphics did not include any sponsor logos or identification. Sponsors who purchased advertising time with FOX did receive identification on the graphics. Joe Gibbs, team owner for Tony Stewart’s winning car in the Budweiser Shootout, was surprised to hear that his sponsor’s logos were not used on the graphic while others were(actually Home Depot was shown on the graphics but Interstate Batteries were not). And NASCAR president Mike Helton also expressed surprise with FOX’s decision to show logos only for those who purchased advertising AND see a story at the Richmond Times.(2-12-2001) UPDATE 2: Fox has relented agreed to show the logos of all cars competing in NASCAR races even if they are not network sponsors. After meeting with NASCAR officials on Monday, Fox said it would use all the logos in its graphics beginning Thursday with the Gatorade 125s(ESPN/AP)(2-13-2001)
