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‘Wide Open’ racing

Clint Bowyer spins out at the June 29 Sprint Cup Series race, a development that tends to lead to a commercial break. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
By DOUG DEMMONS Birmingham (Ala.) News
Clint Bowyer spins out at the June 29 Sprint Cup Series race, a development that tends to lead to a commercial break. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

Imagine that you are watching a football game and your team’s offense is on the field in the middle of a drive.

Just as the players break huddle, the TV network breaks to 2 minutes of commercials. When it comes back, you are told that your team scored on an amazing diving catch – and you missed it.

Or suppose your baseball team is coming back from a three-run deficit and has runners on base late in the game. The network cuts to commercial break just as the clean-up hitter comes to the plate. When it returns, the game is tied.

Would you:

A) Throw a shoe at the 46-inch LCD TV you still haven’t paid off?

B) Have to be revived by paramedics?

C) Grab your pitchfork and torch and join the mob outside the TV studio?

D) Remind your kids to be grateful because when you were growing up you had to watch games in black and white?

Fortunately, this never happens – to football or baseball. Those sports have natural breaks called innings and timeouts. Football even has special timeouts for TV.

Auto racing fans are not so lucky.

Watching a race on TV is not for the easily angered. For everyone else it is at least sure to elevate your blood pressure.

NASCAR fans have become accustomed to the Unholy Trinity of Fox, TNT and ABC/ESPN cutting away in the middle of green-flag racing and coming back only to find that a wreck has brought out a caution or that there was a pass for the lead.

The problem, of course, is that a NASCAR race has no natural break. Once it starts, it doesn’t stop except for the occasional red flag. Even when cautions come out, there is a lot of drama and strategy playing out on pit road that fans want to see.

Most people have assumed this is just the way it has to be.

Not anymore.

NASCAR fans got a taste last Saturday of something that TNT called “Wide Open Coverage.” It’s basically a split screen with commercials on one side and the continuing race action on the other. This isn’t new to IndyCar fans, but NASCAR fans got to see it for only the second time last Saturday. The first time was a year ago.

The show wasn’t entirely “wide open.” TNT still cut to 17 minutes of full-screen commercials. But it was a vast improvement and should put pressure on the networks to make it permanent.

It has to be a better deal for the companies paying for the ads. The content of the commercials is probably consumed to a much larger degree by fans who don’t want to miss the action. With standard commercials, it’s a signal to take a bathroom break or go make a sandwich.

Those who watch the race on TiVo just hit fast forward.

The networks say it is cost-prohibitive to do this all the time. They need to find a way.

As the nation’s economy circles the drain and gas prices escalate, NASCAR has come down with a case of Empty Seat Syndrome. Fans are parking themselves on the couch and driving up NASCAR’s TV ratings, so making this work shouldn’t be rocket science.