Does this look like the "big one" to you?
When a network covers any kind of event, the coverage of that event has to take into account both the veteran and newbie fan. In many cases, coverage of an event is laced with information for the veteran while the format of the coverage is geared towards the newbie fan who doesn't quite know that much and is brought on board by what the coverage presents. All of it geared towards engaging and potentially exciting. It's marketing and how TV works.
In this day and age, exciting or horrifying phrased words tend to get one's attention. Or at least, if the information is presented in such a way to be horrifying, it can capture the focus of a TV fan rather easily. As the saying might go, "Train wrecks or hot chicks gets attention." Case in point... this is the era of "reality TV" or pretty people delivering the news, as on Fox News.
What's this got to do with the price of tea in China? Not much, but this opinion piece is motivated by what I saw of the television coverage of the Budweiser Duels on SPEED, which is effectively, Fox.
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As any veteran fan knows, qualifying for the Daytona 500 is a combination of timed qualifying runs, seeding by the Duel qualifiers, and then falling back on either the qualifying run times, points or provisional scenarios.
When any veteran fan watched the Budweiser Duels, we know that these races will be seeding the starting field for the 500, with the top 15 (or 16) finishers of each race guaranteed a starting spot in the 500 field. Anyone who has issues in these races and misses the guaranteed starting spot will then fall back on their times from the qualifying runs from Sunday or owners points from the previous season. Veteran fans know that drivers like Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt Jr. are going to be in the 500, no matter what.
Yet while I was watching the SPEED Channel coverage of the duels, I was appalled at the verbiage being used during the race.
The words, phrases and supporting ticker images they projected were suggesting, no, correction, saying at times, that drivers like Dale Eanrhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and others were not getting into the Daytona 500.
What's worse, the language used to convey this information felt like it was crafted by sportscasting lawyers. The verbiage was such that when the statements were made or qualifying status was shown, they did not outright say these drivers were not in the Daytona 500. They technically were representing the information accurately. But the sportscasting staff seemed to be intentionally omitting important information that would make a newbie fan less nervous about their favorite drivers.
Case in point, as the Duel with Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in the early laps, the SPEED announcer pointed out that at the position in the race that he was in, that Dale Jr. "is not in the Daytona 500." That was the exact phrase and no corrective or additional information was added beyond that.
When the wreck happened in the first Duel, the announcers called that incident with a few cars, "...the big one" and after that "big one," they were sure to make clear that [paraphrased from memory]
"If the drivers had minded their p's and q's, they would have raced their way into the Daytona 500. But as it stands now, that won't happen and they aren't in the 500."
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I was getting very frustrated because if I was a new fan, all I would have heard was that these huge, name drivers, were not getting into the Daytona 500. At no time, immediately surrounding these statements, did they make note of the other scenarios that locks them into the 500. That came much much later, after the Duels were over.
Technically, the announcers were recanting the spirit of the rules of the Duel races, so they were not inaccurate. But anyone with any common sense would know that what they were delivering to the fans was half-truth information and they were letting the fans supposition their worries about these drivers into the equation.
To me, that's dirty sports announcing. Not far off from reality TV or news articles being delivered by blondes with long legs. As far as I can tell (guess), I presume that someone at the network has some hope these prematurely sensationalized statements would make it to the social networks in panic and spread these ugly half-truths. Now that would get some serious interest on the D500 revved up. The Duels might "trend."
But I found this kind of reporting frustrating. It was a slap to the veteran fans and it incorrectly sensationalized the moment, as the rules could be exactly stated, because technically, no, these teams were not going to "race into the 500 from this event."
Had they added a quickie, "Hey, but..." about the points and qualifying times from Sunday, well, that would have been responsible reporting. But they took no such measure during the race. I have to believe this was intentional because it occurred multiple times over the course of both Duel qualifiers.
Hey, we're in the era of sensationalized reporting. And this, my friends, is my suspicion why TV is having a hard time hanging on to long-term fans. It's all about the fresh blood brought into the fold and engaging them, in any way possible.
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