After 28 years and 398 races, ESPN’s live telecasts of NASCAR Sprint Cup racing took the checkered flag Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway with the telecast of the 2014 season finale. The race marked the end of ESPN’s eight-year contract with NASCAR, which began in 2007. Previously, ESPN had televised live NASCAR racing from 1981-2000. Beginning in 2015, Fox and NBC will split the NASCAR season.
‘We’ve enjoyed a long and mutually beneficial relationship with NASCAR,’ said John Skipper, ESPN president. ‘NASCAR was a fundamental building block for ESPN during our first two decades and will always be an important part of our history. We have tremendous respect for all in the sport and wish them well. While we won’t be televising NASCAR races after this season, the only thing ending in our relationship with NASCAR is the live racing. NASCAR coverage will continue to live on all ESPN platforms going into the future.’
ESPN’s history with NASCAR began in March of 1981, less than two years after the network launched in September of 1979, with the tape-delayed airing of its first NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Rockingham, N.C. At the time, only the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s biggest race, aired live in its entirety, and that had only started in 1979. Selected other events either aired live in part or on a delayed basis, sometimes weeks later, on broadcast network television. After three more delayed telecasts in 1981, ESPN aired its first live flag-to-flag telecast of a NASCAR Sprint Cup race on Nov. 8, 1981, from Atlanta. From that race forward, with a few exceptions, the NASCAR races airing on ESPN were live and the entire race was shown, setting a pattern that resonated with viewers. And as ESPN added races to its schedule in the next several years, and other networks did as well, the NASCAR premier series schedule was on its way to being fully televised. ESPN televised 262 races from NASCAR’s premier series from 1981-2000, an era of unprecedented growth for both NASCAR and ESPN. During a time when individual racetracks made their own deals for television, ESPN introduced a national audience to races telecast from classic NASCAR tracks such as Bristol, Martinsville, North Wilkesboro, Rockingham and others that had seldom been seen on TV. In 1990, ESPN aired its all-time high of 20 events.
Bob Jenkins was a central figure in ESPN’s live NASCAR race telecasts for the first 20 years as the lap-by-lap announcer, joined by analyst Larry Nuber in the early years and then later by former NASCAR champions Ned Jarrett and Benny Parsons in the booth as analysts. Dr. Jerry Punch, who joined ESPN in 1984, was a pit reporter for 17 of ESPN’s first 20 years of NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage and also called some races from the booth, including the memorable Talladega race in 2000 that was the last win for the late Dale Earnhardt. Punch remains with ESPN today and was the only announcer who worked on Sprint Cup race telecasts in both ESPN eras. Dr. Dick Berggren and John Kernan also had long runs as pit reporters during ESPN’s first 20 years in NASCAR while Nuber, Jack Arute, Bill Weber and Ray Dunlap also contributed to coverage from the pits. Bestwick and analysts Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree were the voices calling the race in ESPN’s NASCAR booth in recent years, with pit reporters Dave Burns, Jamie Little, Vince Welch and Punch. Analysts Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty joined host Nicole Briscoe on the pre-race NASCAR Countdown program. Among other announcers who contributed to ESPN’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race telecasts over the past eight seasons: analysts Tim Brewer, Ricky Craven and Ray Evernham, anchor Marty Reid, pit reporters Mike Massaro and Shannon Spake, reporter Marty Smith and pre-race show hosts Brent Musburger and Suzy Kolber.
Along the way in both periods of NASCAR on ESPN, the network has been a leader in innovations to elevate the coverage of the sport, with the live racing honored with 19 Sports Emmy Awards, as well as many industry honors, including the NASCAR Award of Excellence (1989) and the National Motorsports Press Association Myers Brothers Award (1987). Notable innovations and firsts in ESPN’s NASCAR coverage:
1981 – ESPN airs its first live, flag-to-flag telecast of a NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Atlanta on Nov. 8.
1985 – ESPN is first network to have live telecast of qualifying for a NASCAR Sprint Cup race
1989 – Introduction of ‘crew cam’ attached to a member of Rusty Wallace’s crew at Rockingham – followed by other unique innovations including telemetry, ‘CableCam,’ ‘FootCam,’ ‘RoofCam,’ ‘SuspensionCam’ and the use of an infrared camera and roving reporters.
1991 – Introduction of ‘Tread Cam’ buried in the asphalt at Indianapolis Raceway Park for telecast of a NASCAR Nationwide Series race – the innovation won a Sports Emmy Award for Point of View Technology.
1996 – ‘rpm2night’ becomes TV’s first daily motorsports news show
2007 – First time a single network had televised entire NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule
2007 – ESPN is first network to televise NASCAR fully in high definition with the first use of HD in-car cameras
2007 – First network to record/have available for playback all 43 team radios during a race telecast
2007 – First network to have enclosed mobile studio for cutaway race car and demonstration of technical elements of racing (Emmy Award-winning ESPN Tech Garage)
2008 – First network to have two female pit reporters on NASCAR Sprint Cup telecasts (Jamie Little and Shannon Spake)
2009 – ESPN2’s NASCAR Now originates live from the White House, the first regularly-scheduled ESPN program ever to do so. President Obama is interviewed on the program.
2011 – Introduction of ‘NASCAR NonStop’ for split-screen commercial breaks during second half of all Chase races (ESPN pioneered split-screen commercial breaks in IndyCar coverage in 2006)
2011 – Introduction of dual path technology in Sprint Cup coverage, allowing views from two different onboard cameras in same shot for first time
2013 – NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson becomes first active athlete to guest host ESPN’s signature news and information program SportsCenter
(ESPN)(11-19-2014)
