NASCAR fans weren’t too thrilled with FOX’s coverage of the Daytona 500 last weekend. Everyone tuned in complained about the frequency of commercials, which disrupted a lot of green flag racing. Dale Earnhardt Jr. tried to explain what happened.
Commercial breaks proved to be a big problem for fans throughout the Great American Race, with fans missing a lot of action. A graphic put on Twitter showed just how bad it was on Sunday:
So, what’s the problem? On the Dale Jr. Download podcast, Earnhardt talked about the potential issues with the coverage.
“It’s a tough spot for me and you to be in because we work in the booth, we work in the business, and we understand it a little bit differently. But I was surprised while I was watching the race,” he said.
“So I’m watching the racing, and Mike Joy talked about this on Twitter, and I thought, ‘Man they must be frontloading this race.’… A lot of times, we may try to frontload the commercials into the first stage. That gives us a chance to say at the end, ‘Hey man, for the last 20 laps we’re going to stick around.’ And so I thought that’s what they were doing. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. Mike Joy touched on that a little bit. That’s a common practice for them.”
Earnhardt continued to say that he understands both sides of the situation.
“I understand that the networks are trying to take advantage of the opportunity to bring in ad revenue, they need to,” he said. “It’s expensive to put on these races. Sometimes, though, I get, just the frequency of it, or how it’s done. Could it be done differently to where we don’t step away from where the action really is?”
NASCAR Fans Rip FOX Broadcast for Daytona 500
Fans tuned into Sunday’s Daytona 500 voiced their frustration with FOX throughout the broadcast. Many took to Twitter, sounding off on the abundance of commercial breaks.
Some got so fed up with the broadcast that they hope NASCAR drops FOX as a broadcast partner.
One fan even referred to Sunday’s race as the Daytona 500 Commercials. Technically, the broadcast only took 23 breaks, but fans missed nearly 80 laps.
That’s not the best recipe for success.
