The IndyCar race got rained out from Barber and will be at noon ET on Monday. To recap the first 22 laps, Josef Newgarden dominated, Will Power spun and Ed Jones may have turned Charlie Kimball. Oh, and James Hinchcliffe pissed his pants. While Barber was wet, Austin was dry and Marc Márquez picked up his 12th consecutive victory in the United States. The last time he didn't win a race in the United States was 2010. NASCAR had a lot of green flag racing at Richmond. DJR Team Penske had a great weekend at Phillip Island. The Brits have regained their stranglehold on World Superbikes. Jason Anderson has one hand on the Supercross championship. Super Formula and the Blancpain Endurance Series both held season openers. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Getting to Know the Neighborhood
IndyCar has saddled up with NBC Sports and come June every IndyCar race from then until the end of 2021 will be broadcasted on an NBC Universal property and at least eight races will be shown on network NBC. There is still a lot of time before IndyCar can officially call NBC home but IndyCar is already moving boxes into the house.
With IndyCar getting comfortable I think now is a good time to take a look around the NBC neighborhood. IndyCar and its fans need to know the boundaries. The neighborhood isn't going to make concessions for IndyCar. The present parties have property and IndyCar and its fan base must respect that. The best way to do this is go through the NBC portfolio is looking at the event month-by-month.
Let's start with February because if IndyCar were to start its season earlier it would most likely start in February.
February:
This year was the Winter Olympics, which took place from February 7th to February 25th. NBC had prime time and late night coverage every night and NBCSN was virtually 24/7 Olympics for nearly three weeks. It is a quadrennial event but something to keep in mind.
On top of the Olympics, NBC had the Super Bowl this year on February 4th. Like the Olympics, the Super Bowl is not an annual but a triennial event as it is shared with CBS and Fox. The Super Bowl is only one day but it is likely outside of when IndyCar would start its season. If anything, the earliest IndyCar would start would be the weekend after the Super Bowl to maximize the football offseason and get in as many races as possible before the next season starts in September.
With the extraordinary events out of the way, regular NBC Sports properties in February are the National Hockey League and the Premier League. The NHL usually has a game of the week shown every Sunday on NBC with most start times at 12:30 p.m. ET. Premier League weekends usually consist of morning matches with perhaps a match shown on network at 12:30 p.m. ET on Saturdays.
March:
Things start to pick up in March. The NHL and Premier League continue but golf starts to take off as events are held in the warmer climates of Florida, California and Mexico.
Next year sees a shift in the golf schedule with The Players Championship moving from the middle of May to the middle of March as the PGA Championship moves to May. Like IndyCar, the PGA wants to avoid clashing with football in September as well.
The Players Championship joins an already congested month of March when it comes to golf. NBC already shows four prominent tournaments during the month of March. This year had NBC broadcasting the WGC-Mexico Championship March 1-4th; the Valspar Championship took place the same weekend as the St. Petersburg season opener (March 8-11th), the Arnold Palmer Invitational was March 15-18th and rounding it out was the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play on March 21-25th.
April:
If you thought March was full of golf well guess what starts off the month of April? That's right, golf! The Houston Open is held typically on the first weekend of the month just prior to the Masters Tournament. After the Houston Open there is a bit of a reprieve of NBC's golf coverage with CBS taking over most of the tournaments held from the Masters on but we are not done talking about golf.
The Premier League season continues into April and the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin in the middle of the month with NBC having regular weekend coverage of games. This season most playoff games on NBC have started at 3:00 p.m. ET and each Saturday so far has had a game at 8:00 p.m. ET. A bit of a change considering in past years NBC has had playoff games begin as early as 12:30 p.m. ET. This is something to keep in mind.
May:
Let's start with the first Saturday in May and the Kentucky Derby. It takes up that entire day. Besides the Kentucky Derby, two weeks later is the Preakness Stakes and that usually falls on Indianapolis 500 qualifying weekend and we know the history of Indianapolis 500 qualifying clashing with the Preakness Stakes.
Besides horse racing, the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue and the Premier League season is coming to an end. The Premier League usually takes place in the morning so there should not be many conflicts but there could be a massive headache if the events of 2015 repeat. The final day of the 2014-15 Premier League season occurred on May 24th. NBC went from the Monaco Grand Prix straight into Premier League coverage with an abbreviated post-race show and Premier League took up the rest of the morning and early afternoon. That same day was the Indianapolis 500, which has started at noon ET in recent years.
The Indianapolis 500 is the one event I feel sure NBC is going to show but a clash between the Premier League's Championship Sunday and the Indianapolis 500 will likely piss a lot of people off. Would the start of the Indianapolis 500 be delayed a half-hour or more? Would the race get no pre-race show and rather dive right into the pre-race ceremony followed by the command to start engines and the green flag? It is rare for the Premier League to end that late in May and that was the season after a World Cup year. Next year's Premier League is tentatively set to end on May 19th so crisis averted for 2019 but it should be kept in mind for 2020 and onward.
On top of Championship Sunday and the Indianapolis 500, another major sporting event taking place in late-May is the French Open. This year's tournament will be May 27th to June 10th. The interesting thing about the French Open is early round matches are shown tape-delayed on weekends with the semifinals and finals shown live. This one might be less of a worry for IndyCar fans.
June:
On top of the conclusion to the French Open, we have finally reached the Stanley Cup Final and the end of the NHL season. Also occurring is the Belmont Stakes, which is typically the second Saturday in June, occurring six weeks after the Kentucky Derby.
The back half of June is rather open once all these events have concluded but this open period does not last long.
July:
IndyCar bumps into an old friend in July and it is NASCAR! NBC picks up the second half of the season and we are all familiar with the NASCAR schedule. This season sees only one NASCAR event on network television in July and that is the Daytona race on Saturday July 7th.
But NASCAR isn't the only event to be concerned about. The Tour de France takes up nearly the entire month and while the time difference takes care of any conflicts the race does take up entire mornings and NBC will re-air coverage in the afternoon on weekends.
Another European event to keep an eye on is The Open Championship, golf's oldest major. This year's tournament is held July 19-22nd so there is no clash with an IndyCar weekend but there has been in past years and each round ends in the middle of the afternoon here in the States.
This is where we should also mention the Summer Olympics and this quadrennial event returns in 2020 from Tokyo. The 2020 Summer Olympic Games will take place from July 24th to August 9th so the Mid-Ohio weekend would fall in the middle of it. The good news for IndyCar is the time difference should allow for the race to be broadcasted in-between taped coverage of events that happened overnight from Japan.
August:
NASCAR season continues and we know about the back half of the 2020 Summer Olympics but the Premier League returns in the middle of August. The month does remain rather tame despite the start of a new Premier League season and NASCAR does have an off week at the end of this month. The Watkins Glen Cup race will be on NBC this year.
September:
The conclusion of the IndyCar season comes during a busy period for NBC Sports.
The final three rounds of the PGA Tour's Fedex Cup occur during September. It is unclear how exactly the end of the golf season will look next year after the movement of the PGA Championship but this year has the Dell Technologies Championship held over Labor Day weekend, the BMW Championship the weekend after that and the Tour Championship two weeks after the BMW Championship.
On top of the golf, NASCAR has reached the Chase with Darlington, Las Vegas and Charlotte all being shown on network NBC this year and the NFL season begins with NBC showing Sunday Night Football. NBC will also broadcast the Ryder Cup this year but that is after the IndyCar season on the last weekend in September.
What was the point of this exercise?
I think it is important to know the landscape and consider the consequences of IndyCar's new television deal. We were all excited about an IndyCar move to NBC on paper but will we be as excited as it comes to life? IndyCar isn't taking over NBC as its number one sports property. There is a pecking order and just because IndyCar has a race does not mean it usurps a golf tournament or Tour de France coverage.
The other thing to consider is what it will take for a race to get on network television. It sounds great of having Iowa shown on network television well what if the only way it gets on is by moving the start time further back in the afternoon? Or what if the only way Road America could be shown on NBC is if the race started at 4:00 p.m. local time? There is this delicate balance in motorsports in doing what is best for a television partner and doing what is best for a race promoter and we know television dictates start times. Television seems to want later start times but we have seen races struggling to draw a crowd with later starts.
Also, the issue IndyCar had this year with the St. Petersburg coverage ending with only Sébastien Bourdais hastily being interviewed from inside his car and the likes of Robert Wickens not being interviewed and completely forgotten because of an NBA games doesn't go away. IndyCar is still going to be subject to hard outs. If an IndyCar race is scheduled to be broadcasted at 12:30 p.m. ET prior to the start of a Stanley Cup playoff game at 3:00 p.m. ET the hard out still exists. If the race ends at 2:59 p.m. ET it might get an additional five minutes and a bit of pregame will be missed but IndyCar isn't going to get 15 minutes of post race coverage with the top three being interviewed with the maybe another two drivers also getting air time. NBC has a hockey game to get to.
I am sure I am not the only one who is curious what IndyCar races will be on network television next year and whether races with great action are shown or if the races that are broadcasted on NBC are the ones that fit easiest into the network schedule. IndyCar will still get eight races on network television, which is a win for the series but the concern is how will these network races be handled? Will they be carefully considered or mechanically plugged in? After seeing how NBC has handled the NASCAR schedule I do have faith the network will have a master plan to how it schedules IndyCar's network races.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about the wash out at Barber and Márquez's success but did you know...
Patricio O'Ward swept the Indy Lights races from Barber. Parker Thompson and Harrison Scott split Pro Mazda races.
Francesco Bagnaia won the Moto2 race from Austin, his second victory of the season. Jorge Martin won the Moto3 race, his second victory of the season.
Kyle Busch won the NASCAR Cup race from Richmond. Christopher Bell won the Grand National Series race.
Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes split the World Superbike races from Assen. Jules Cluzel won the World Supersport race and he is the fourth different winner in four races.
Scott McLaughlin swept the Supercars races from Phillip Island.
The #1 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi of Dries Vanthoor, Christopher Mies and Alex Riberas won the Blancpain Endurance Series race from Monza.
Naoki Yamamoto won the Super Formula season opener from Suzuka.
Marvin Musquin won the Supercross race from Foxborough.
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One makes an earlier stop to Azerbaijan.
NASCAR makes its first stop at Talladega.
Pirelli World Challenge holds its second SprintX weekend of the season from Virginia International Raceway.
Formula E returns to Paris.
The World Rally Championship makes another trip across the Atlantic and specifically to Argentina.
The Supercross season has reached the penultimate round of the season in Salt Lake City.
The World Touring Car Cup has its first European round at the Hungaroring.
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