Felipe Nasr and Pipo Derani won the qualifying race for the 24 Hours of Daytona. Ben Keating and Mikkel Jensen took the top spot in LMP2, Moritz Kranz and Laurents Hörr won in LMP3, Nick Tandy and Alexander Sims won in GTLM and Bill Auberlen and Robby Foley won in GTD. Jenson Button has a new job, and a new team and he is returning to driving. The IndyCar season opener has shifted back another week. Portimão will open the FIA World Endurance Championship on Easter Sunday. MotoGP will have two races in Qatar and go to Portimão two weeks after Easter Sunday. MotoGP's Argentina and Austin rounds are indefinitely postponed. There was some television news involving an important network for motorsports fans in the United States. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
A New Broadcasting Horizon
On Friday, NBC Universal confirmed at the end of 2021 NBC Sports Network would shut down. The channel has been the home to the National Hockey League, Premier League, Olympic events, the Tour de France and the three of the major motorsports series in the United States: NASCAR, IndyCar and IMSA, as well as taking on MotoGP in 2020.
While 2021 will remain unchanged, this announcement means changes will be coming in the near future.
NBC Universal confirmed some of the sport properties will shift broadcasting homes from NBCSN to the USA Network, and notably cited Premier League and NASCAR as being future USA programming. The key word is "some." USA is your typical cable television channel filled with syndicated episodes of NCIS and Law & Order for days on end for our parents to watch. It has its own programming but will carve out some room for the sports properties on the weekends. It is not going to be wall-to-wall sports. Some will lose out.
NASCAR will be fine. Its contract runs through 2023.
IMSA is a little shakier. Its contract runs through 2024, but I am sure it will manage.
IndyCar finds itself on the hot seat. Its three-year contract with NBCSN ends at the end of the 2021 season. While nine races of the 2021 will be on NBC, the other eight will air on NBCSN. IndyCar's relationship with NBCSN dates back 12 years to when the property was still Versus and IndyCar took a gamble jumping from ESPN, an aircraft carrier ruling the sports sea, to the tugboat that was Versus in 2009. There were many regrets about the decision in the moment, but three years later the network was rebranded after Comcast purchased NBC Universal. After seven years carrying the weight as the cable partner while ABC got the glory of the Indianapolis 500, IndyCar fully moved in with NBC at the start of 2019. It was a move many were glad to see happen.
In 2019, the Indianapolis 500 received major event status. It had a three-hour pre-race show between NBCSN and NBC and a post-race show to boot. IndyCar got half its schedule on network television. And then the pandemic hit. While 2020 still saw half the races on network television, the season didn't start to June, the Indianapolis 500 was moved to August and IndyCar was competing for real estate with a delayed Premier League season and Stanley Cup playoffs.
The 2019 momentum was gone. IndyCar still had a good year in 2020 all things considered, but growth was not practical when the season opener and the largest event were each booted back three months. It was no one's fault. It was out of everyone's control.
But the last thing you want to hear in a contract year is your current arrangement, which you are largely happy with, will not be an option. IndyCar found something good, and it will have to change. That doesn't mean a complete divorce from its current partner. The future might not be so bad, but there are not many amazing options.
IndyCar will either have to adjust with the change of course of its current partner or look elsewhere. NBC is willing to air half the races on network television. It is just a matter of where the other half go. USA did show the first Harvest Grand Prix race in 2020, on a Friday afternoon nonetheless. But we come back to "some" in the press release. USA could become a sports network from Friday at 7:00 p.m. ET through the end of Sunday, but it could be one Premier League game at 10:00 a.m. ET on Saturday ahead of race for NASCAR's second division and then a Premier League on Sunday at 11:00 a.m. ahead of a Cup race before getting back to more NCIS reruns.
This Sunday, USA had Law & Order SVU on from 10:00 a.m. through 11:00 p.m. I guess it could cut that down to four hours and still be ok, but IndyCar might not be in the plans if Law & Order reruns draw better ratings. If USA isn't an option, there is always CNBC. It can squeeze between infomercials and Shark Tank. Then there is the Peacock option where some races are only available via the Comcast-owned streaming service. I am not sure we are there yet where the series can live on a streaming platform. I doubt the sponsors are there.
While the sound of hopping between obscure NBC Universal properties sounds bleak, it might not be much better elsewhere.
IndyCar could slink back to ABC, get Indianapolis on network plus a handful of races, but ESPN is trying to bolster ESPN+, and I am not sure IndyCar is going to win out for ESPN2 coverage against college basketball. CBS has not shown much interest in motorsports over the last 20 years and its cable sports channel is about ten steps back from where NBCSN is at now. Plus, CBS is also throwing things on streaming platforms. Look at its UEFA Champions League coverage on CBS All Access.
Fox is the only one not getting into the streaming game, but IndyCar would be second fiddle to NASCAR for the first half of the year and the broadcast integrity will be brought down to a third-grade level. Perhaps an outside party like Turner Sports could get involved, but races on TBS or TNT would be equal to having races on USA. Why not stick with what you got in that case then?
Though IndyCar's broadcast plan for 2022 and beyond is unclear, here is one thing I am sure about: The Indianapolis 500 will be on a network channel. Roger Penske is not going to put the entire series on cable. It is just a matter of how much that partner embraces IndyCar. With ABC, it had to take on four more races. NBC has the entire schedule and chooses to put half the schedule on network.
Let's be clear the series will not get every race on network unless it decides to shorten the season to ten or 11 races. Multiple networks could carve up IndyCar, but there is only one race that matters and only one network can get that a year. The networks aren't lining up to show the Indianapolis 500. IndyCar isn't in a position where two networks can split the series and trade the Indianapolis 500 every other year.
Let's also not forget for a little over a year there has been more of an effort for an IndyCar-NASCAR shared weekend and it was forced in 2020 due to the pandemic, but now it is planned for 2021. One of the reasons for that is a shared television partner in NBC. Roger Penske has his fingers in both cakes, in fact he owns one of them. Roger Penske is going to look out for himself and rarely do we see Penske make the wrong choice. He is going to do what is best for business and I think he sees the value of IndyCar and NASCAR staying close to one another and sharing a partner.
The start of the 2020s could not have been much bleaker. We are all coming off a lost year and are starting 2021 hoping the tide will soon turn. Another significant change is the last thing anyone wants to see right now, but IndyCar is faced with one and its 2021 season opener is still floating in the air. The world continues onward during these difficult times and industries are still trying to innovate. People are still looking for different ways to consume programming and the companies are trying to keep up.
IndyCar has to find a place for itself during all this uncertain. It can still get a good deal, but we might have to accept it requires a change from something we were comfortable with.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about the Daytona qualifying race, but did you know...
Sébastien Ogier won Rallye Monte-Carlo for a record eighth time and it was Ogier's 50th WRC victory.
Shane van Gisbergen won the New Zealand Grand Prix, as he swept the three races that made up the Toyota Racing Series opening weekend from Hampton Downs.
Eli Tomac and Cooper Webb split the two Houston Supercross races.
Coming Up This Weekend
The 24 Hours of Daytona.
Supercross will be in Indianapolis for the first race of another three-race residency.
The Toyota Racing Series will remain at Hampton Downs for round two of the championship.
