As noted above, CBS Sports announced their on-air team for the upcoming Superstar Racing Experience season Wednesday. As you probably remember, that is scheduled to start June 12 at Connecticut's Stafford Motor Speedway.
NASCAR fans have been clamoring for the return of Allen Bestwick for what seems like most of the time since ESPN left the sport. Why? Because he's the consummate professional. He knows his stuff and brings a level of respect to the broadcast.
I've only talked to Bestwick twice previously. He's a good person with a lot of respect for the sports that he covers. He's probably a lot more diverse in his sports broadcasting skills than you think. Since ESPN left NASCAR, he's been doing play-by-play for College Football, Tennis and Women's Basketball, among other assignments. Those are very different sports as compared to
motorsports.
A lot of that stuff has been only on a regional basis. The basketball coverage was generally only available here in the Northeast. I could tune into SportsNet New York (SNY, the New York Mets' regional sports network) and hear Bestwick calling a UConn game.
Lindsay Czarniak comes to the broadcast from FOX Sports, where she has held roles on NASCAR RaceHub in recent years. She has a good amount of previous racing experience in between her stints with ESPN.
Czarniak will be in a hosting capacity. By today's standards, that might mean that she won't even make the trip to Stafford Springs for opening night. Knowing her background, she could spell Yocum in the pits if need be. That might not be necessary, though.
Speaking of Yocum, his hiring to report for the pits was probably the only one that I could have predicted here. I felt that he had a good relationship with some of the toughest guys in NASCAR to earn respect from (Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, etc.). That's key. It's hard to get through to some people. If you do manage to do it, good things are bound to happen.
I'm not sure how this roving reporter thing for Brad Daugherty is going to work. Like many people, I thought he was still under contract with NBC Sports, knowing that half of the SRX schedule clashes with NBC Sports' NASCAR coverage. I suppose not. We'll see how this goes.
Then, we get to the driver analysts. For the first couple of races (Stafford and Knoxville), Danica Patrick will be in the booth. I haven't had the best things to say about her previous work in the booth (most notably her guest analyst work with FOX Sports 1). It is my contention that Patrick needs some support in the booth. She didn't get it her first go-around with FOX Sports 1.
I think she'll get some alongside Bestwick, but she'll also have to carry a bigger load than before because we're talking about a two-person booth here. Perhaps her work on her Pretty Intense podcast will help just in terms of making her more comfortable with talking and making her thoughts known. One thing that CBS better not do is something of the camera shenanigans they did at Indianapolis last year when she was working for NBC Sports. That was inappropriate.
You hired Patrick to be an expert analyst, not a sexual object.
In addition to Patrick, the other four races will be split between Dario Franchitti and James Hinchcliffe. Both of them have other responsibilities. Franchitti is a booth analyst for the World Feed of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship. Since that airs on the CBS family of networks, it's a bit of a natural fit. As of now, he's booked for the races at Lucas Oil Raceway at
Indianapolis (July 3) and Slinger (July 10).
Hinchcliffe is full-time in the NTT IndyCar Series. He's booked for the Eldora (June 26) and Nashville (July 17) races, which are on off-weeks for INDYCAR.
None of the three driver analysts have ever raced on the tracks that they will be working at (as far as I know). As a result, there might be some fish out of water scenarios. Regardless, I do look forward to how they'll work together with Bestwick.
Overall, CBS Sports and SRX put together an excellent on-air team for their broadcasts later this year. I think the viewers will like what they come up with. I'm looking forward to how they do together.
As for CBS getting back into motorsports, they definitely started small with the overseas series that they acquired from FOX Sports and weaning themselves into covering races. The Formula E coverage has been disappointing so far because it's invisible. I can't figure out how to get the stuff on CBSSports.com to work. The website design stinks and it's hard to get to it from the main page of
their site. I plan to contact them about this issue personally.
The most recent race was aired via tape delay at 1 a.m. late Sunday night/early Monday morning. I couldn't tell you how many people watched that because I don't believe CBS Sports Network subscribes to Nielsen ratings. The only live broadcast available here in the United States was on Formula E's YouTube page. Previous to this season, viewers got nearly every race live on FOX Sports 1 or 2
and tape-delayed coverage of qualifying.
I hope the visibility of Formula E will increase as we get into the summer. Whenever they get around to having the New York City e-Prix in Red Hook, that should be on CBS, but the rest of the events just don't get any exposure. I know that CBS wants to build CBS Sports Network into something bigger. Heck, they had the Semi-final matches for the UEFA Champions League live there earlier this
week. However, they've never been able to boost the channel to the point where people even know what it is. It might be less visible now than it was when it was still CSTV 15 years ago.
If CBS Sports Network were to be used extensively as part of a bid for expanded rights to anything, they would need to boost the channel's reach and consciousness to the general public. That goes for NASCAR, INDYCAR, IMSA or anything else.
