Everybody jumped into the Danica Patrick's bandwagon in this year "Danica 500". ABC, of course, didn't want to miss this golden opportunity especially Patrick was fast on track all month long, and her presence would bring in casual viewers to watch its coverage. Unfortunately, the network opted to spend 50% of TV time to cover Patrick instead of the actual race. If you love motorsports, the ABC coverage was poor, subjective and totally unprofessional. It was by far the worst sports coverage I have ever seen.
Danica Patrick is no doubt good, but she is not that good yet. Sure, she was the first female to lead the 500 and it was legit, but she made two mistakes during the race. On the other hand, ABC -- especially new host Todd Harris, continued to cheer for her like they are on Viagra, it was totally uncalled for and unfair to the other competitors. For instance, when Patrick spun her car during the caution late in the race, there was no mention about Patrick's victims. The only driver mentioned [briefly] was Tomas Scheckter, but what about Tomas Enge and some other unidentified drivers? Hey, I still don't know exactly who were involved in that incident. [Scheckter and Enge said little about the incident because Patrick is too popular and it wouldn't do them any good to rip the rookie.]
What do you expect? This is the network that brought you Desperate Housewives and the infamous half time cross promotion during Monday Night Football, where "Housewives" star Nicolette Sheridan dropped her towel in front of Philadelphia Eagles football player Terrell Owen in the locker room. You can argue that it wasn't as extreme as the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake outrageous 'wardrobe malfunction' incident during the Super Bowl halftime show over at CBS/MTV/Viacom, but still there were kids watching MNF as well and the network's intention was horrible. Fortunately for ABC, another sports incident took place soon after and took away the spotlight from the Sheridan-Owen R-rate skit. That's right. I'm talking about the Pistons-Pacers NBA brawl in Detroit.
My point is -- ABC would do anything to promote their product, even though it's not completely relevant to the sport itself. It's okay to spend a lot of time in Patrick - ABC needs her, the IRL needs her, and heck the U.S. open wheel racing community needs her, but you can't spend 50% of the show to cover on one single athlete. Danica Patrick is not a proven winner and she is not Michael Schumacher, Michael Jordan nor Mia Hamm. Even after the race, Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon was left out until late because of Patrick's fourth place finish. Where is the logic?
Just like American journalists watching NASCAR's Talladega race in the Media Center while they were covering Formula One's U.S. Grand Prix. European journalists must be laughing by now.
The real stars in this year's Indy 500 were Wheldon, Vitor Meira and guess who … Sebastien Bourdais. The reigning Champ Car champion is versatile, and he would be right up there if Newman/Haas has a full time program in the IndyCar Series.
To be fair, Danica Patrick paved a very clever career path for herself, and partly because of team owner Bobby Rahal. She didn't rush to get into the big league, but instead she stayed in the 'minors' to race the Atlantic and a few ALMS races. She gained exposures by posing on FHM just like popular Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard, she secured backing from Argent Mortgage, and more importantly, she took her time and learned.
Two years ago she stood at Kenny Brack's pit during the Indy 500, she listened to the team radio and studied the race. Not a lot of people recognized her back then, but it's not the case right now.
Hopefully she can somehow keep the media away as much as she can because it's going to affect her somewhat. When Sarah Fisher was racing in the IndyCar Series, ABC used the similar tactic to lure viewers, and in the end it didn't do Fisher any good. Sometimes being popular is not exactly a good thing, especially you are a young pretty girl in racing.
I'm not a Darrell Waltrip fan on TV, but the FOX NASCAR coverage is pretty darn good - fair and balanced. Let's hope IndyCar is not all about Danica Patrick and her mom's feelings. Can we have someone more professional to call the race? Scott Goodyear was ok, and Gil de Ferran, where are you? - Kevin Ma
Source: http://www.nyautoracing.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment