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Dale Earnhardt Jr. has gone wheel to wheel with NASCAR’s best, hoisted Daytona 500 trophies and won the sport’s Most Popular Driver award 14 times.
He’s hoping that stellar record will follow when he leaves full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition at the end of this season, hanging up his driver’s suit and picking up the microphone as part of NBC Sports’ broadcast team.
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The Hendrick Motorsports driver and the network announced the pairing Monday, and all involved sound optimistic about the opportunities awaiting Earnhardt.
“Definitely looking forward to next season and finally glad to be able to have this decision made and be able to talk about it and share it with everyone,” Earnhardt said. “Growing up around the sport, and having admiration for a lot of the folks that are in the media today, I’m very excited to step into that realm and learn what I can to continue to further the sport. I want to showcase the sport to folks and try to explain to everyone what’s happening out on the race track.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun for me.”
Not only will Earnhardt work NBC’s second half of the 2018 NASCAR season, but network executives said Monday that Earnhardt will have the opportunity to join broadcasts of other sporting events from the National Football League to the 2018 Olympic games.
“He has tremendous crossover appeal,” Chairman of NBC Broadcasting & Sports Mark Lazarus said.
“He’s clearly the star of his generation,” reiterated NBC Sports Executive Producer and President Sam Flood. “His love of the sport and his passion for the history of the sport makes him such a unique talent. … We’ve talked about football, we’ve talked about the Olympics. I can see him being involved if it’s the right fit for him and for us. We hired Dale to be Dale.
“The most important thing is his voice. We didn’t hire him to be an announcer. We hired him to be himself and we’ve talked about that. That’s the most valuable thing we have. Nothing’s locked in stone, it’s all about opportunity and that’s what we’ve established in this partnership.”
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Earnhardt described the upcoming career transition — Alex Bowman will take over driving the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet beginning in 2018 — as a natural decision to shift from competitor to commentator. There was no hesitation to move into the broadcast area, where he has some experience and garnered favorable reviews.
“I think my feelings about the sport and how much I love being a part of the industry pushed me to make this transition and make it quickly,” Earnhardt said, dismissing any inclinations to take time off after he leaves full-time competition. I felt as soon as that [competition] comes to a close, there will be a void to fill.
“So I think to do this well, it needs to happen now. Taking a year off never really entered my mind. We have a lot of growing businesses, Dirty Mo Media and Hammerhead Productions and a lot of things we’re involved in. I still want to work. I’ll only be 43 years old in October. There’s still a lot of things I want to accomplish and do.”
Earnhardt shared that his work last season in the booth alongside his former crew chief-turned-NBC broadcaster Steve Letarte only confirmed his desire to consider a broadcast position.
“I remember when I went into the booth last year and the feeling I got being in there and the feeling I had afterward when I left the booth. … I had no idea how enjoyable that was until I did it,” Earnhardt said. “I couldn’t believe it.
“I knew immediately then in those moments when I was going through my injury last year and got the opportunity to go in booth with Steve and Jeff [Burton] that I definitely wanted to pursue this as an opportunity if there was interest. I had no idea how people felt or whether I had what it took.
“But once we started having conversations and I realized there was interest, it was very exciting.”