NBC News should know that NASCAR isn't the last bastion of redneck; the people at NBC Sports thought so much of NASCAR -- and its diverse fan base -- that it chipped in with TNT to spend $1.2 billion for broadcast rights the past six years.I actually wondered whether there would be an official response from NASCAR given NBC's connection as a broadcast partner, but it's clear that the sport is not happy about what the network is trying to pull. This is the second article on their website about Dateline, so they're not holding back.
Mike Smith, director of public relations for Martinsville Speedway, said that the Dateline crew's presence wasn't as stealth as it possibly hoped.
"Our security knew almost immediately that [the Dateline crew] were on site and they were monitored the whole time they were here, for obvious reasons -- their protections, fans protection -- and they were not disturbed," Smith said. "It says a lot about our fans.
"If there is an upside, it shows that the image so many people have of NASCAR fans is a false one, and it shows that not only at Martinsville Speedway, but at NASCAR tracks in general, it shows what type of security we have in place that can discover something like this, observe it and make sure nothing happens.
"We've gotten calls [Thursday] from fans praising our security and wanting the number for Dateline," Smith said. "As disappointed as we are, we feel pretty good about the end result."
Take a bow, NASCAR Nation.
What could NBC have been thinking? I figure there's one of two possibilities. Either the news division never bothered to talk with the sports division about targeting one of their biggest partners, or NBC didn't care because this is the last year of their contract and they won't be involved in the sport in 2007. Maybe this was an attempt at a little payback for giving the contract to ABC. Either way, it was dumb.
UPDATE: More here.
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