Convo: Neil Goldberg

ESPN's senior motorsports producer, Neil Goldberg, has a lengthy legacy in NASCAR television coverage, ranging back to the earliest days when ESPN played a huge role in developing NASCAR's fan following, through a stint at FOX Sports when ESPN took a brief hiatus from covering the sport.

Q: What's the biggest difference you see between ESPN then, back in the early 1980s, and what the network brings to the table now, week to week?

ESPN

Neil Goldberg

• ESPN returns with innovations

Goldberg: As I've said before, the one thing that stays the same is the people behind all of this stuff; that can bring the stories and the technology to bear. But the resources that we have, to really better document and support the stories that we've been trying to tell and the things we've been trying to cover, for all these years, is the biggest difference.

I'm sitting here with my co-producer Jamie Shiftan, and we were talking about making lists years ago -- for me the '80s and '90s, and for Jamie the '90s -- of the things we'd like to do, but the technology didn't exist for us to do it, whether it be computer interfaces or GPS.

But now we're able to take this technology and really ... I kind of look at our broadcast as servicing the multiple platforms that ESPN has on the air at the same time -- whether it be the viewer that just wants to keep their eye glued to a scoring ticker so they know where their driver's running all the time, or the person that wants to be educated, and for them we can run animations. So the technology now exists to support what [analysts] Rusty [Wallace] and Andy [Petree] and Doc [Dr. Jerry Punch] and what our pit announcers are saying or a crew chief is saying on pit road, to further explain and enhance what we're trying to do in the telecast -- and that's the biggest difference.

That, as well as the pure number of cameras we now have to document the race and the little incidents that happen in the race, whether it be on pit road -- the mistakes or the victories -- that happen during the race, all the stories within the story.

Q: Just for a ballpark comparison, how many cameras would have been used for the inaugural Watkins Glen Cup race in 1986, and how many were used a couple weeks ago when the series raced at The Glen?

Goldberg: For the inaugural at Watkins Glen, I would say we'd call it -- if you took all the onboard cameras and the aerial shot -- between 30 to 35 cameras. That's camera lenses, and when I say that, I mean there were three camera lenses in each onboard, so we had an option of three different shots from each onboard, but only one feed coming out at a time.

For the last race at The Glen, we had 60 camera lenses -- so it was easily double.

Q: Looking at then and now, again -- would you say your viewers today are savvier and more critical, whereas before they were just thrilled to have the coverage they were getting?

Goldberg: No, I would say they were just as critical, at least through my years. The people watching motorsports, particular NASCAR, have always generated the most viewer mail. At least it used to be mail -- and then, when the Internet came, there's been more fan feedback than any other sport that I've ever been involved in. (Continued)