ESPN had a pretty bad second run with NASCAR if you ask most fans that were watching at the time. With an unprofessional channel wide way of looking at the sport and the choking out of broadcasts for other (most of the time less popular) sports NASCAR fans had reason to hate the Worldwide Leader In Sports. But no other time was worse for fans than when ESPN had switched their ABC coverage of the 2008 NASCAR Cup Series’ penultimate race in the championship fight for America’s Funniest Videos. This is the worst ESPN NASCAR broadcast decision.
Video Credits:
ABC Entertainment
ABC Sports
America’s Funniest Videos
Austin LaPlante
Chris Aurelio
ESPN
FOX Sports
Idk Player
jinjabreadman46
megacream
Motorsports on NBC
NASCAR
NASCAR on FOX
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NascarAllOut
NBC Sports
NR Cup Series
Old Channel
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Turner Sports
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Thumbnail Credits:
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Outro Song:
Strange Animal (Crowder Remix) by Gowan
Songs:
[FREE NO COPYRIGHT BEAT 2020] FREE INSTRUMENTAL TRAP #8 by White Mamba
OUTLAW | Free Country Rap Beat | Western Hip Hop Beat | Lil Nas X Type Beat by Royalty Free Beats
#NASCAR #Motorsports #espn
47 comments
What is the worst NASCAR broadcast you can remember?
@Ezekial Lockhart me too.
Canada is so different from the states. It very rarely changes channels even when y’all do because it’s only on TSN here
Wasn’t a Talladega race switched to cable for the last couple laps not too long ago?
anything by fox the past 3 years.
Fox
I have an inverse, where the broadcaster actually cared: Surprised the 2005 UAW GM Quality 500 doesn’t get mentioned. It was the inverse of ESPN. The controversial USC vs Notre Dame game ran so long that NBC switched to NASCAR right as the pace car pulled off. From what I heard, the NBC Sports director tried to time the race start with NASCAR and they ran like 10 pace laps (according to people at the track and a long lost SPEED program from 2005).
Fun Fact: The 2008 Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 was Kyle Petty’s final race as a driver
Then Petty Enterprises became Richard Petty Motorsports after that and merge with Evernham.
When i was a kid i always picked my favorite drivers based on how cool their car was, that said Kyle’s hotwheels car was my absolute favorite.
@Fosco Grubb a common theme, all my favorites had red white and blue cars and rarely if ever did well, Dave Blaney, Johnny Benson and Kyle Petty.
@SUPRAMIKE Trackhouse racing has this dope red white and blue jockey car
A massive broadcast blunder in recent memory that I don’t think many people remember is FOX’s sudden blackout on the final laps of the 2019 Martinsville truck race where Todd Gilliland got his first win. People watching at home were unable to witness the finish on TV, and right when the race came back on, they immediately had to move on to college football. I believe Eric Estepp made a video reacting to it
@Run Rafa Run #THEBESTINTHEWORLD I figured my judgement on that would be wrong lol, I just barely hear about it anymore so I figured people just kinda stopped thinking about it
I remember that
@GatoradeCupSeriesX94 to be fair, it seems like every Network sucks at broadcasting NASCAR races anymore.
FOX should have stayed in their f****** trailer!
That had me pissed and it was Todd’s first win
2022 Atlanta Spring weekend, when FOX continuously focused on kids during parts of the races. They even missed a crash in one of the races
Why not focus on the hot women instead?
Also: idea for a future video: the time NBC/TNT replaced Allen Bestwick with Bill Weber and the latter apperantly being a bit of a nuisance, most notably the “It’s a team, we’re a family.” incident in a 2006 Michigan race, like, that’s been stuck in my head since I first saw it in a compilation video.
It’s a team we’re a family?
There was a long time theory that Marty Reid left ESPN because of Ricky Craven constantly picking on him during broadcasts.
Looking back I wonder if the NBC/TNT guys were doing a similar thing with Weber… He seemed to get picked on a lot during both the NBC/TNT & the TNT Summer Series eras right up until he was ditched.
@poly cube Michigan clip during commercial.
I remembered watching this race. I was a 4th grader. I can’t believe they booted a playoff race off ABC for a show that nobody watches besides 70 year old people.
You mentioned the personnel shifts at NBC in the 00s and just to shed some light on that, it still blows my mind to this day why they kicked Allen Bestwick out of booth and tossed him to the pits. Don’t get me wrong I love Bill Weber just as much. If there was anyone to put in the booth after Allen, it was him. But Allen should have never left. He’s still one of the best race callers out there. Still so great calling the SRX series today.
NBC reportedly did not like Bestwick playing in a charity hockey game and moved Weber to the broadcast booth because of it and put Allen in the pits.
@Evan Williams he broke his leg as well, and had to be replaced by Weber during the 2004 season
The permanent replacing was a punishment, for him and us fans. Webber doesn’t hold a candle to him on the booth
Agreed
BREAKING: Chase Elliott expected to be out for 6 weeks. Josh Berry will drive ovals and Jordan Taylor at COTA. Love that Taylor’s driving at COTA. 7th week would be Talladega. Expect Elliott to start but maybe not run the whole race.
People who act like moving races to other channels is bad nowadays were definitely not around during this era. The number of times I tuned in to watch a race, only to see basketball or college football, are way more than what I deal with nowadays.
Ikr at least NBC when they moved the Xfinity Roval race a few years ago they had the Nightly news excuse. Pfft
I don’t know if it was a local thing, but I remember missing like 80 laps of the 2016 spring phoenix race due to some breaking news FOX felt like they had to report live instead of just putting it in a ticker like they usually do.
I had a similar thing with a race last year, but it was local since I’m Californian. They cut into the race to show a press conference relating to a mass shooting (one of the many in recent years). 20+ minutes, 30+ laps, I think it was at Richmond or something.
I was at that race when I was a kid. That rain delay was the only thing I can recall
I remember in 2014 for the Charlotte Chase race where nobody on TV saw like the first 50 laps because of a whole slew of college football games. I guess they were going over? Idk, but it was weird.
The one moment that stuck out to me was back in 2010 for the Bristol night race,Michigan residents (myself included) were forced to watch an hour live special on the Woodward dream cruise on ABC,I was PISSED to say the least,race didn’t come back on till lap 230ish.
I remember this. While the Woodward Dream Cruise is a big event. It’s definitely second to a NASCAR race, even the lowest watched ones today, let alone Bristol near its peak
Am I the only one who thinks Jerry Punch has an iconic voice? He also saved Rusty Wallace and other drivers
He does, he is just better on pit road than the booth.
He was better than Marty Reid lol
I swear I remember watching this race as a kid and somehow being bummed out about not seeing the finish. Though of course my mom and I were watching AFV quite a bit then. But point being, I don’t remember the finish of the race or at least seeing it. Beyond that Johnson won and he needed to finished 36th or better next week
The Talladega race in 20 or 21 that got bumped to cable for the local news really chapped my backside. Unable and unwilling to pay for cable, I was limited to how many races I can watch live. This was one of them, and I made a big event of it, making absolutely certain I had all my household chores done to be able to watch this race from start to finish uninterrupted, only to not be able to see the crazy finish with Matt dibenedetto almost winning until the highlights got posted to YouTube. I’m still salty about that.
That really ticked me off…FOX is the only network that doesn’t do fans dirty like that.
They need to stop having big name drivers in the booth for publicity purposes and actually focus on hiring ppl with play-by-play skills and great story telling abilities
I have a feeling this will be added to the NASCAR Iceberg soon with “Race brodcasts ending before the finish” which refers to 2008 at Phoenix with ABC switching the end of the race to ESPN2 on the east coast, 2020 at the Daytona Road Course with NBC cutting to the Sunday Night News almost immediately after the checkered flag and 2020 at Talladega with NBC switching the end of the race to NBCSN
The most recent broadcasting blunder for me was the 2019 Coke Zero 400 at Daytona. Right as soon as the red flag came out, my local NBC affiliate cut the race broadcast off and showed “paid programming” basically infomercials instead.
Another was the 2017 Bank of America 500 at Charlotte. My local NBC affiliate cut off the race broadcast with 5 to go to show news coverage of a thunderstorm.