 | | Southern Cal or Southern Cal? Credit: AP and Robert Laberge/Getty Images |
By Josh Pate, NASCAR.COM
December 27, 2006
12:09 PM EST (17:09 GMT)
It's Sept. 2, the opening Saturday of college football. College GameDay, on the campus of Georgia Tech, has long been over with its preview of tonight's season opener between the home-standing Yellow Jackets and No. 2 Notre Dame. These two teams have more than gold in common -- both have future NFL players in Tech's Calvin Johnson and Notre Dame's Brady Quinn. Interestingly enough, former Yellow Jackets coach George O'Leary left Tech to accept the head coaching job with the Irish in 2001, only to resign five days later after a resume scandal was uncovered. The highly anticipated kickoff is moments away as the clock nears 8 p.m. ET. Later tonight, at 8:45 p.m. on ESPN after a Cal-Tennessee matchup that paired two top-25 teams, USC begins its title defense at Arkansas, who has Heisman-hopeful Darren McFadden back for his sophomore season. Fourth-ranked Auburn has just kicked off to Washington State over on ESPN2. The hours creep by, and after flipping back and forth between games, you settle on Georgia Tech-Notre Dame after the Jackets stunningly slip out to a 10-7 halftime lead. And as the third quarter winds down just after Darius Walker scores on a 13-yard run to give Notre Dame a 14-10 advantage, you realize ... the Busch Series race from California is on tonight. That was the exact scenario this past fall when no less than 12 football games were scheduled to air on ESPN's collection of networks in perhaps the biggest weekend of college football -- the first one. So as three games were in the second half, the Busch Series was in California for a 10 p.m. ET start on TNT. At that time, Kevin Harvick had a 519-point cushion in the standings heading into the 27th of 35 races. Which do you watch? The same thing could easily happen in 2007, only with ESPN's eight-year television contract that includes exclusive rights to the Busch Series, one of those high-profile football games will be replaced with Saturday night NASCAR.  | "It comes down to the consumer watching what they want to watch. If it's college football they're looking for, they're going to watch college football."
- Tony Ponturo, Anheuser-Busch Inc.
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"It's a huge positive," insisted Dick Glover, NASCAR's vice president of broadcasting and new media. "ESPN and ESPN2 will continue to have the best college football lineup, and that will provide exposure to NASCAR, specifically the Busch Series. In turn, the Busch Series will provide exposure to ESPN's college football games." Julie Sobieski, ESPN's senior director of programming and acquisitions, said the same thing -- that juggling the gridiron with a 43-car grid won't be a problem. "We certainly view having college football and the Busch Series as an advantage to us," she said. "A lot of times the race and a football game will be leading in and out of one another, and research has shown us that fans who follow college football also follow NASCAR." That's understandable for the Cup Series -- college games are on Saturday, Nextel Cup races are on Sunday. But we're talking Busch Series and Saturday evening (or night, in California's case). "The top college football game is not usually early on Saturdays," said Rich O'Connor, TNT's NASCAR producer. "It's typically an afternoon kickoff or even prime time. Busch races don't take a long time. A three-hour Busch race is a long race. So if it's on early in the day, that still allows time for [ESPN] to show the major college football game of that day." Sobieski admits viewers can expect a lot of 3 p.m. ET starting times for Busch races. In the world of college football, that's just when things get good. The noon kickoffs are typically low-key and non-ranked matchups (except for those Big Ten traditionalists), and by 3 p.m. they're winding down. Good games are good games, no matter who's playing. The 3:30 games, often the South's biggest gridiron clashes, are just beginning. So why not get the television coverage back to what it used to be with noon races? "No," said Sobieski, who noted that night races are a network's best friend. "From our perspective as a network, the later the race the better. We want to capture fans when they're in front of their TVs." Is it more convenient to watch a race at night? Yes. There's too much to do on Saturdays when Working Class America is off and has yardwork or Little League -- speaking of, the Little League World Series will be shown on ESPN's networks and directly conflicts with the Michigan and Bristol races. Do night races draw a larger television audience? No. The nine Cup races that were held under the lights in 2006 drew an average Neilsen Rating of 3.86. In contrast, the average rating for the entire season was 4.81 -- and that does include the highest Daytona 500 rating in three years as well as two low Monday ratings due to rainouts. Maybe it's not an issue, but rather a dream lineup like ESPN and NASCAR say. "Most fans don't leave their TV on one station -- they flip back and forth," Sobieski said. "Well when we have a Busch race and two football games in progress, when they switch across our networks it provides a great lineup for us. We certainly consider it an advantage." The casual sports fan who decides (duh) that Ohio State-Michigan is the entertainment of the afternoon tunes in to ABC. Exhibit A turns the television set on, relaxes in the recliner to do just exactly the opposite of what Sobieski said -- he's going to leave the set locked on this instant classic that, this past fall, began at 3:30 p.m. ET. Suddenly, one of those graphic-overload promos creeps across the bottom of the screen with a tire carrier and a jackman advertising Busch Series racing at 4 p.m. on ESPN2. The odds of Exhibit A turning the channel, despite what any Buckeye or Wolverine will tell you, are high. And that -- capturing the college football fan during his most vulnerable time of the weekend -- is something that has NASCAR drooling. NBC promoted and oftentimes even led directly into Sunday night NFL football like it was pushing Bob the Builder on 3-year-olds -- not a hard sell. FOX talks baseball. TNT talks basketball. ESPN will talk college football. And the dancing partner will talk back. ESPN's cross-promotion among its networks is like no other. So when Louisville is playing Marshall on Thursday, don't be surprised to hear NASCAR brought up more times than what a great job the Thundering Herd's defense is doing. "It comes down to the consumer watching what they want to watch," said Tony Ponturo, vice president of global media and sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch Inc., one person that's not at all concerned about Busch Series coverage in 2007. "If it's college football they're looking for, they're going to watch college football." And ESPN will make sure they know racing is coming up next. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer. | 
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