Takuma Sato won the Gateway IndyCar race in a photo finish over Ed Carpenter and that wasn't even the most impressive thing to happen at Gateway. Sato-Carpenter arguably wasn't even the best photo finish of the weekend and we have MotoGP to thank for that. The NASCAR Cup Series was off but the other two national touring series had road course races. Suzuka hosted an endurance race. Germany hosted a rally. A manufacture swept a podium. A record is likely going to be shattered in Australia. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Are Commercials All That Matter?
We are in the middle of an ever changing and shifting media landscape.
It seems there is a new platform, new feed, new set of time wasting material popping up on a daily basis. There is more at our fingertips than ever before. Along with an abundance of television channels we have multiple streaming services giving us an incredible catalog of programs, old and new. We have YouTube channels that put out videos on a daily basis, some uploading new material multiple times on a given day. Then we entertain ourselves through social media, choose your poison when it comes to those services.
This is also neglects to mention books, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, CDs, tape cassettes, radio, music streaming services, board games, crossword puzzles, word searches, Sudoku, color-by-numbers and solitaire as things vying for our attention.
Let's just say there is no reason for anyone to say they are bored in the year 2019. If you cannot find a way to entertain yourself than that's on you.
Anyway, motorsports are not protected from these changing times. Everyone is trying to evolve and remain available to the general public. It is not easy to stay with the times. It was easier when television and radio were your broadcasting options. Now, it is difficult to keep up and have a broadcasting deal that covers all the different platforms, especially when there is not a common platform for all viewers.
Television is still king. I don't care when you cut the cord or how much traditional television you do not watch, television is still on top. With that said, the times are changing and there is a portion of the population that is entirely floating free on streaming platforms.
With all these changes, we see a conflict in viewership and what is tolerable. Streaming services have provided people with the ability to avoid advertising at all cost. The issue is advertising and commercials are always going to exist. Someone has to cover the bill and commercials are the avenue of choice for most, even on the Internet.
Commercials were once part of the experience. Everyone had to live with it. The 21st century has changed that. There is a commercial-free generation that has never had to pause for a commercial break, has never had to endure one-minute commercials for some kind of medication that's side effects are ten times worse than the condition being treated and they are spoiled.
Let's call it like it is: These people are spoiled. They choose to be spoiled but spoiled nonetheless and it leads to conflicts, especially when it comes to coverage of any sport but we are going to focus on motorsports today.
Commercials have been a part of a race. Once again, someone has to foot the bill and when broadcasters are paying millions of dollars for rights fees, someone has to re-coop that money. Commercials are the answer. It is the name of the game. However, there has been a change in reason years in the United States and it has to do with the largest motorsports series in the world.
When Formula One moved from NBC to ESPN it was a big change because there was not a dedicated American broadcast team. ESPN decided to take the world feed. ESPN also is not paying a rights fee. Formula One passed on NBC due to Formula One introducing its own over-the-top streaming service. NBC didn't want to give that up and basically wanted something similar to what we have with the IndyCar Gold Pass, but for Formula One. With Formula One introducing its own OTT service, it did not make sense for Formula One to go head-to-head with NBC's OTT service. It wasn't going to blackout its streaming service in the United States.
Enter ESPN. ESPN would take over traditional broadcasting means, would not compete with Formula One's OTT platform and Formula One was willing to give it away for nothing.
ESPN's first race came and it was treated like every other race. The only problem was the world feed approach caused an issue when it came to commercials. There was no warning of a break. It came and when you returned no one was there to catch you up. Add to it that the first time ESPN went to break was when both Haas cars retired from pit lane issues in the Australian Grand Prix last year and when it returned there was no catch-up. Both Haas cars were out with no explanation made to the viewer.
This caused a bit of a minor earthquake with enough pissed off fans making a commotion for ESPN to take notice. The network was quick to assure the same problem would not happen in the next race.
The good news for ESPN, since it spent zero dollars on Formula One rights, it didn't have to have commercials. ESPN made a profit from that one race alone. Of course, ESPN wasn't going to settle on one race and we have seen commercial-free coverage with some company, usually Meguiar's Car Care, being the presenting sponsor of the commercial-free coverage.
Moving onto IndyCar, this is the series' first season with NBC being the lone television partner and people have been angry with the number of commercials. It did not take the people who once cried "Always Bad Coverage" long to establish a new acronym: "Nothing But Commercials."
Remember: IndyCar fans got what they wanted. They wanted NBC to be the lone television partner. Here we are!
I don't know how many commercials are too many. I mostly tune the commercials out. I also watch the race differently, with live timing and scoring in front of me and with one earbud in with the radio broadcast. There is plenty to watch even when the race is in a commercial. Funny enough, television and radio do seem to go to commercial break simultaneously more than one would expect.
I remember Seth Meyers was a guest on Bill Simmons' podcast before Myers hosted the ESPY's one year and Meyers said something along the lines of "saying you hate commercials is like saying your least favorite thing about grocery shopping is the cash register." It is part of it and it is not something new. If you have been an IndyCar fan for 50 years you have been watching television with commercial for 50 years. You have been watching sports with commercials for 50 years. You have been watching IndyCar races with commercials for 50 years.
I don't think it is too entirely one-sided as commercials taking up more times than the race itself. If I went after a younger generation of being spoiled for avoiding commercials I am going to go after the older generation who were spoiled in thinking there were not as many commercials as when they were a child or at least at a younger age.
When races were on ABC's Wide World of Sports, you didn't necessarily see the entire race in many cases. You basically got extended race highlights and all the action could be condensed and commercials could fit around it. You didn't see fewer commercials but you saw less of the race. The difference is the broadcast could be guaranteed to include every pass for the lead, accident and every other notable moment.
When the entire race is broadcasted flag-to-flag, there is no guarantee you will see anything important. There is the chance every notable thing happens during a commercial break. That rarely happens but the chance is there and you are always going to feel like you are missing out because the race goes on despite not being on your television screen.
With the Formula One rights in the United States up for grabs in 2020, vocal fans want commercial-free coverage to continue but that does not seem likely. Formula One is not going to give away the United States TV rights for free again. The series is losing too much money on the United States. Whatever network agrees to Formula One rights is going to bring back commercials and somehow it is going to infuriate a load of people and I don't get it.
When Formula One left NBC, it left original content, dedicated pre-race and post-race shows and an American voice. There were commercials during the races but Formula One got plenty of airtime outside of when practice sessions, qualifying and the race occurred.
There has to be more than matters than whether or not there are commercials in a race. The knowledgeable people on the broadcast and what they bring are important. A television partner should be interested in the property beyond the time when its events have to be on the airwaves. The auxiliary programming, the behind the scenes stuff shows how dedicated a network is to a property. NBC gave Formula One fans that extra stuff.
Has this current U.S. Formula One television deal introduced a new concept into how a race is broadcasted and could certain races find one or two or three that present the race with the only commercials being 30-second ads for those companies before returning to the race and going uninterrupted until that third of the race is complete? Maybe.
I am all for trying new things and introducing things that can make the broadcast better. If the networks can find a way to split presenting sponsors and some races will have next to no commercials then great! It sounds good on paper but if no companies are interested in that approach than it is not going to happen and we are going to have our traditional blocks of commercials, which are not the end of the world. You will live and it will not be as excessive as you think.
We, as the audience, have to be more critical than basing whether or not the coverage is suitable over the number of commercials. It is foolish to do such a thing. It is important to realize what we have is not a terrible thing and there are reasons as to why it exists the form that it does.
We cannot be one-dimensional in what we want. We only set ourselves up to lose out in such a case.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Takuma Sato but did you know...
Oliver Askew won the Indy Lights race from Gateway, his fourth consecutive victory and his seventh victory of the season. Kyle Kirkwood won the Indy Pro 200 race from 12th on the grid. It is Kirkwood's fourth consecutive victory and sixth of the season.
Álex Rins won MotoGP's British Grand Prix by 0.013 seconds over Marc Márquez after making a pass off the final corner. Augusto Fernández won the Moto2 race, his second victory of the season. Marcos Ramírez won the Moto3 race, his second victory of the season.
Christopher Bell won the NASCAR Grand National Series race from Road America, his sixth victory of the season. Brett Moffitt won the Truck race from Mosport, his second consecutive victory and his fourth victory of the season.
The #25 Audi Sport Team WRT Audi of Frédéric Vervisch, Kelvin van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor won the Suzuka 10 Hours.
The #911 Porsche of Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet won the IMSA race from Virginia International Raceway. The #33 Team Riley Mercedes-AMG of Jeroen Bleekemolen and Ben Keating won in the GTD class.
Scott McLaughlin swept the Supercars races from Tailem Bend and he has tied Craig Lowndes' single-season record of 16 victories. There are eight races to go in the 2019 season!
Nico Müller and René Rast split the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters races from Lausitzring. It was Müller's second victory of the season and Rast's fifth victory.
Ott Tänak won Rallye Deutschland, his second consecutive victory and fifth of 2019. Kris Meeke and Jari-Matti Latvala made it a Toyota 1-2-3.
Coming Up This Weekend
IndyCar's penultimate race of 2019 from Portland.
The Southern 500, NASCAR's penultimate race of the Cup regular season.
Formula One is back and is back at Spa-Francorchamps.
The FIA World Endurance Championship season begins at Silverstone with a four-hour race.
The European Le Mans Series will have its own four-hour race at Silverstone.
Blancpain World Challenge America has its antepenultimate round from Watkins Glen.
Blancpain World Challenge Europe has its penultimate round from Nürburgring.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
