Fox will offer extended post-race coverage of NASCAR with an online program beginning this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. The Overdrive on FoxSports.com will begin immediately after the network ends its broadcast coverage of Sunday’s Sprint Cup race. The program will use Fox’s entire nine-person broadcasting crew and consist of live interviews and analysis that will be streamed to its Web site. “It’s something we should have been doing all along,” Bill Brown, senior producer for Fox Sports. “It’s definitely a can’t lose, especially when you take into account what the audience wants to see. We are trying to take care of an audience that has invested four hours into the race, wants more, and we can give them more.” Brown said the idea for an online show had been previously discussed, but network executives realized the immediate need for extended programming following Saturday night’s broadcast at Phoenix International Raceway. Viewers who tuned in for the 3 hours, 48 minutes then received only a brief post-race show of interviews with just the top three finishers. The broadcast ran 50 minutes past its allotted time, and Fox took two commercial breaks after the checkered flag that totaled almost seven minutes. It left no time to follow-up with Denny Hamlin, who received considerable coverage for racing just 10 days after knee surgery. The network also didn’t offer any coverage of Kyle Busch, who lost the race because of a late caution. Fox officials said Busch declined to be interviewed, but viewers were not informed of his unwillingness to speak. Brown said Fox will not set a hard time on how long The Overdrive will run since it will be dictated by storylines. He said all four pit reporters will pursue drivers, crew chiefs and owners for live interviews, mediated by studio hosts Chris Myers and Jeff Hammond. The broadcast booth of Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds will also stay to contribute to the production.(Associated Press)(4-16-2010)
UPDATE: Fox’s plan for extended post-race NASCAR coverage in an online program was wiped out even before Sunday’s race at Texas got postponed by rain. “Unfortunately, due to contractual limitations that we had hoped to overcome, FOX Sports is unable to extend its post-race coverage on FOXSports.com,” Fox said in a statement Sunday. “Since this would have been a commercial-free undertaking, our goal was simply to have all parties agree that this would only benefit NASCAR fans, but obviously that didn’t happen.” Turner Sports owns online video rights to NASCAR content and operates NASCAR.com. In response to Fox, Turner issued its own statement Sunday touting its in-depth coverage on NASCAR.com going into and following each race. NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Fox and Turner have contracts with NASCAR that “serve our fans very well.”
“We expect our partners to respect and abide by the rights that are in place,” Poston said. “FOX provides excellent coverage of the race on broadcast and NASCAR.com provides 24-7 coverage including a significant amount of content postrace.”(ESPN/AP)(4-19-2010)
