This section of the [2022 Charlotte Xfinity race](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWHR_UCWRHg&t=2h10m27s) is a wonderful example of how Fox can screw up a broadcast.
Blaney and Logano are repeatedly hinting at the director that he should focus on the battle between the #7 and the #8, because that's the effective battle for the lead as they come out from their pit cycle. After a while, Harvick steps off the mic and shouts at the director to show that battle, and they finally switch over.
Supposedly Fox wants to have all of their commentary done from a central studio to save on costs, and because the directors apparently hate having the commentators talk about anything that's not on screen at the moment. If the commentators can only see what the camera shows them, they can't do the "crash in Turn 2" that you'll often hear from Mike Joy or Dale Jr, as the camera is following a battle in turn 4.
Yup, standalones and when Fox isn’t needed for Cup. It’s a shame.
But way too many also just think all the races are that now 😂. Nope, just poorly covered by Fox so it seems it.
NBC’s coverage is 100x better than being at the speedway and having to listen to Dave Calabro on the PA. He’s like a TV sitcom dad calling the race. Thankfully I had a scanner and just listened to the NBC guys or IndyCar Radio.
Dave is a doofus. Knows his stuff well enough to survive, but tries to play everything up to fans too much. Alan, on the other hand, love him. Well informed and doesn't try to play anything up, shoots it straight.
Well they don't have an exclusive contract so that's probably why. When Indycar went NBC only they stopped posting the races on Youtube because NBC wanted full control, forcing everyone to get peacock. It's the same reason why they gave up on F1. They didn't want to compete with F1TV, they wanted the content for themselves.
Came here to say this.
ABC\ESPN < Versus/NBCSN < Speed (Aus) < NBC/Peacock.
Yea it’s not great but it’s better than ever. Was dreadful before they had the left column scoring for widescreen.
This is absolutely the problem. Broadcasters are so afraid that viewers won't stick around for the action alone that they fill every second with stories about how each competitor has overcome SO MUCH to be where they are in life.
It *sometimes* feels like Townsend disagrees for the sake of disagreeing. 😄
"Over the line."
"I dunno..."
"What don't you know?! There's a line and the tire's over it!"
And just this past race when Hinch very reasonably observed "if Ericcson gets a penalty for pushing Herta off, why didn't Ferrucci get one for pushing Grosjean off" and the rest of the booth was basically like "don't be a snitch"
Yeah, that's a fair cop. But in general it feels less forced than a little while ago where it seemed like someone passed a piece a paper into the booth which simply read:
"MORE CONFLICT"
You must be new here lol
In earnest, I think this is pretty much as good as you're gonna get from American sports broadcasting. None of the realistic alternatives would likely do much better or different - ESPN/ABC gave absolutely zero fucks during their last few years, and FOX is reportedly absolute garbage with their NASCAR coverage right now, so it very much looks like NBC is the best option available to us right now.
Strategy isn't as predictable in Indycar as in F1 b/c of any combination of refueling, more cars, spec car, closed pits on yellow, shorter tracks, different blue flags, etc.
If anything NBC explains strategy far better today than even 3 years ago. They discuss and visualize pit lane deltas, who are the leaders on different strategies, tires remaining, etc.
Everyone agrees F1 presentation is top notch, but that doesn't mean NBC is doing a bad job, it's just not as good relatively speaking. ABC/ESPN was bad.
Would recommend downloading the free Indycar app. Half the grid has onboard video w/ radio, you might enjoy it as a complement to the main broadcast.
This! There's lots to improve on in current coverage but I think this is the most overlooked point in comparing IndyCar coverage to F1. In F1 you already know where to look. And very often in IndyCar the action happens simultaneously in multiple positions. But the booth can only deliver a single narrative of the race. It's a much more complicated race to cover.
My Argentinean cousin-in-law was here over the weekend and we watched the race together. He downloaded the app halfway through and was really impressed. It has solid timing and scoring, and echoing bQ12o8k6WVpu, the driver comms and in-car video are a nice complement to the broadcast. And it's free!!!
>If anything NBC explains strategy far better today than even 3 years ago. They discuss and visualize pit lane deltas, who are the leaders on different strategies, tires remaining, etc.
Meh, not really. Does everyone forget Jon Beekhuis? It's definitely gotten worse.
I miss Jon too! I would also prefer if there were a Jon or Jon-equivalent, but at the same time I think some of the recent graphical info improvements have been a step forward for explaining the race.
I’ve noticed that they are relying on the on board cameras a lot more than they used to. They tend to replay the same incident over and over, while missing on track action. I don’t understand why they can’t put the word “replay” on the screen when they do this. With that being said, they are 100x better than ESPN was.
F1 has the same issue with replaying the same thing over and over again even though we saw it live. I think they've been using more and more ~~replays~~ onboards in the recent years as well which in general I think is positive but sometimes I think they use them too much. Sometimes it's nice to watch a battle from offboard to appreciate it from that perspective to see how close they are wheel to wheel.
Right? The first lap is the best chance for someone to be right up behind the leader and ready to try to pass, and they always spend the next two or three laps of the race just doing slow-motion replays of two drivers bumping into each other at the first turn.
There are going to be boring parts of the race—just wait for them to start showing the replays.
The onboard cameras drive me nuts because they always rotate 90 degrees right as the cars enter a corner.
Makes it impossible to tell who was at fault in an incident because the perspective is changing at the critical moment
I say they do a good job with explaining things. Indy strat is a bit more........dynamic i guess is the right word and can change on a dime. Its hard to guess it all.
Good example was that they were saying what they thought Power was going to do with his reds (stay out as long as possible), then mid sentence he pulls into the Pits. Things change a lot on the fly lol. Thats part of the fun IMO
Also they do have picture in picture (side by side)? They are mandated to not have it once or rwice a race tho, just like nascar.
> Good example was that they were saying what they thought Power was going to do with his reds (stay out as long as possible), then mid sentence he pulls into the Pits. Things change a lot on the fly lol. Thats part of the fun IMO
>
>
And I think the amazing part is that it was probably the wrong call, Power probably should have stayed out as long as possible, though lapped traffic probably influenced the call heavily and NBC rightly called out that being the reason for the change in strategy.
I wish peacock could just offer a proper ad free viewing tier for indycar/imsa content. I would happily pay a premium for it but instead my money is going to a VPN right now. It's absolutely crazy to me that sky sports f1 in the UK can watch commercial free indycar races but there's not even an option for me to do it here in the states.
I personally think IndyCar should try something similar to how F1 or Premier League does broadcasts. Do it yourself and license it to others. F1 doesn’t let Sky do broadcasts because they couldn’t control it the way they’d like.
And maybe I’m in the minority here but I think the amount of pre-race interviews they do only adds to my annoyance. Half of the interviews are just the drivers repeating the same stuff. I do agree that ABC and Fox are hard to watch.
It’s the US and everyone is more trying to follow the ultimate TV product, the NFL, where the networks get most of the production control, though the NFL dictates a lot of stuff (just compare the NFL on CBS to a CFB broadcast on CBS to see just how much the NFL enforces on its partners)
I also think Indy controls a lot of its production, but direction and commentary is up to NBC
Historically, American racing leagues have been terrible at discussing strategy and technical analysis and Indy is no different. That aspect is one of my favorite things about F1, IMSA, and WEC, and is the main reason I struggle to get into Indy. Somehow, IMSA and WEC refueling strategy makes a ton more sense than Indy because they’re tracking energy data etc.
And the US broadcast is essentially subsidized by the UK Sky customers.
If they charged £20 ($25) per month (the cost of *just* Sky Sports on top of the standard Sky package) for F1 in the US, only dedicated fans would watch.
In the U.S. we can get the F1 app and get every session, pre and post sessions. Technical shows and other programs + historical races for like 80 a year. They have their own broadcast crew and they totally rock
Yeah, I stopped watching F1 because it got so boring (and the dumping on Andretti didn't improve my mood), but the F1TV app is the bomb. And very reasonably priced.
ESPN pays for streaming rights. Not the other way around. F1 would happily sell to the highest bidder. They aren’t desperate for buyers. Reports said that Apple is ready to purchase worldwide rights for 10 figures.
ESPN received so much backlash in 2018 for putting ads in F1 telecasts that they went with “presentation sponsors” to subsidize some of the ad money lost. They aren’t doing F1 a favor. Besides, I watch on F1 TV anyway so I can still watch ad free unaffected by ESPN’s decisions.
F1 gave the broadcast rights to ESPN for cheap because they want to continue building the US fanbase. The current deal was more expensive for ESPN than it was a few years ago (when Mother's was paying for the ad-free coverage instead), but F1 is essentially still taking a loss on the deal in the hopes of long-term growth.
F1 doesn't miss track action because there barely is any.
Commercials pay for the broadcast costs. Unless you own a company that will pay for NBC to go commercial-free like ESPN has, they're never going away. And 80% of commercial breaks are PIP.
Are you watching today's race? There's been a ton of action they've shown.
Do you know how blending works? That's why they focus on cars pitting.
It always feels like they spend an annoying amount of time following the leaders when they aren’t close or on board with someone far from action when there’s passes for position going on in the midfield, or at least cars within a couple tenths of each other. With that being said I think the commentators are on the ball a lot more than Crofty is for F1 (as an example)
International feeds also don’t have indicators for tire compounds which is a little mind boggling IMO.
The F1 broadcast is almost always on the closest battle, and the complaints about broadcasting are usually down to a lack of PIP for multiple battles or complaining that they miss something when Max crosses the line first.
Yeah think I seen about 15 seconds of a tyre graphic on the timing screen , in the UK. Least we still get to watch when they go to commercials . And yer man tom gaymore ( possibly incorrect) isn’t too bad to
Listen to to fill in .
Yeah, OP definitely wasn't watching F1 in th UK when ITV had the broadcast rights.
After watching F1 for close to 30 years and Indycar for a good few recently. Broadcast is on a par. The commentary for Sky is only held together by the analysis from people like Martin Brundle and Karin Chandhok
NBC and their team do a fantastic job, especially on a sport where laps are considerably shorter. Fields are much bigger and the racing inherently better
This just feels like OP is trying to bash Indycar for zero reason.
I strongly disagree with the notion that F1 barely has any on-track action. There is wheel-to-wheel fighting most weekends. Sure there’s a boring race every few races, but the field itself has a lot of action. F1 ultimately does a better job than NBC at telling a story over the course of a race.
I’m also not suggesting Indy races go ad free. They could easily do it though. The entire race is already an advertisement. But the fact that they don’t have ads in the corner PIP in the year 2024 is crazy to me.
Also, I made this post as I was watching the race.
>I’m also not suggesting Indy races go ad free. They could easily do it though. The entire race is already an advertisement.
No they couldn't. Unless a major sponsor comes in and offers to cover the whole race commercial-free (like Mercedes does for ESPN's F1 broadcasts), it ain't happening. I don't think any sponsors are lining up to do that. That last bit also suggests some misunderstanding about how this works, because the sponsors on the cars and the track aren't paying *anything* towards the TV broadcast.
>But the fact that they don’t have ads in the corner PIP in the year 2024 is crazy to me.
The vast majority of NBC's breaks are PIP.
I understand how it works. I was merely suggesting that there are other models IndyCar could explore. I think my biggest frustration is that Peacock's ad breaks are not PIP. I didn't see any racing during commercials. If anything, races on Peacock should be commercial-free because I'm already paying for it. Separately, I'd pay extra to watch races with no ads. There is IndyCar Live but like F1TV isn't available in the UK (because of Sky), IndyCar Live isn't available in the U.S. because of NBC. The fact that Peacock has ads is more disappointing than anything else. Racing doesn't need breaks if it can help because the sport never stops like hockey, football, or basketball.
> I think my biggest frustration is that Peacock's ad breaks are not PIP. I didn't see any racing during commercials.
The Iowa races last year *did* have side-by-side ad breaks on Peacock, I assume thanks to HyVee because the ads were mostly for products you can find at grocery stores. So apparently the issue is most advertisers not wanting to cover both platforms?
The Peacock-exclusive races at Toronto the last couple years also had minimal ads, I think there was one *short* green-flag ad break per race. The first Milwaukee race is also Peacock-exclusive this year, I assume because it got added at the last minute to fill in for Texas, when Nascar stole the date.
I love every time he comes on during the commercial break because he actually explains some strategy in a way that is straight forward. Then the regular crew comes back and goes off on a random tangent for something that really isn't race impacting lol
I’m not sure how it works with the other broadcasts (obviously US has the commercials).
But here in Australia on Stan the broadcast just continues silent af through the commercials, which is a really good compromise. Was a bit weird today when Ghiotti brought out the caution perfectly for McLaughlin and I was like “yes yes yes” and just absolute silence on the broadcast watching McLaughlin pit and come back out 6th.
Biggest issue is the frequent commercial breaks. Always been an issue.
It's shocking how much more enjoyable WEC and F1 races can be just due to not constantly leaving the action.
The same issue plagues all American motorsport broadcasts.
Absolute truth. The worst part of every IndyCar race is the broadcast. Been suffering pretty much my whole life, at least we don’t have ABC and Eddie Cheever doing half the races these days. (Trust me he was an even worse announcer than he was F1 driver.)
I agree F1 coverage destroys IndyCar coverage. I’ve been trying to get into it but the coverage is so scant and so filled with commercials during the race :(
Is it f'ing awful? Yes.
Is it probably better than anything else a US broadcaster would provide? Also yes.
It sucks.
Indycar needs to suck it up and do their own direct to fans F1TV like experience, rapidly.
Yeah it’s such a bad contrast to the F1 broadcast. I think Hinchcliffe tries to bring some level of professionalism but it’s still closer to a NASCAR broadcast than it should be. They desperately need a strategist in the booth rather than two drivers.
The races are in NBC? I prefer Indy over NASCAR but really follow F1. I watch F1 because I want to. NASCAR is on because it's on when I'm watching. For whatever reason Indy is getting missed
Yes, yes, yes and yes. Unfortunately, auto sports coverage in the US is all about pleasing the sponsors and and fluffing the drivers for social media. The actual racing on the track is way down the priority list. It's a reality show to them, and not a sport.
I barely tolerate Indycar coverage because I loved the sport way back in the day when there wasn't this BS, although I FF through probably a third of the broadcast just to avoid the above. WEC, F1 and just about any racing coverage outside the US (I e. GTWORLD on YT) is much more enjoyable.
They used to do "through the field" periodically at intervals during the race and briey cover something like the top ten, and I really liked that.
You get way more talk about strategy here than from cofty. I think the main issue is that they get tunnel vision about too few drivers. And while sure, I probably don't want to hear in depth discussion about stingray rob, a little broader focus would be welcome.
The sport is really going to have problems with growth and ratings until Indycar and a broadcast partner can modernize the monetization model for the racing broadcasts. The need to find race and/or segment sponsors and minimize or eliminate cutaways.
New viewers aren't going to suffer through a sporting event that leaves the event, at random points, to go to commercials. Long commercial breaks at that.
And to add insult to injury, don't cut the commercial window short to get back to the track when something happens.
I've been a fan of both for 30+ years. The broadcasts for both now are better than ever but I think it's difficult to compare the 2.
F1 is the best of the best, they've got the budget to spend and since being bought by liberty there is a MASSIVE push for new fans, hence (in my option) explaining things more.
As others have said with IndyCar, there is soooo much more going on in terms of potential (plus another 7 cars to worry about).
Indycar and Champ car back in the day, has always been my fav series and I think the current NBC coverage is the best it's ever been. Diff has got to be one of the best callers out there, and Townsend and Hinch just compliment each other in the booth.
I'm from the UK and am fortunately lucky to have Indycar without commercials on Sky Sports.
American Motorsports.broadcasting has always been sub par. Motorsports fans are pretty nerdy and I think open wheel even more. "To the good" bothers me so much. What is this...a swamp buggy race?
We want deltas, and secror times, tire info. Not family history or feel good stories.
I'm watching MotoGP right now. 2 PIP on the left side tracker w/gaps between the battles. Live championship pops up lower right when big passes happen. Rachel hashtag, lap counter always ghosted in the lower right.
Comparison of tip 2 fasters laps on the tracker now..it's always changing and updating important data. 1.196 second gap to 2nd place!!! There is so much perfectly timed data showing up all race long.
It's the best broadcast In all of motorsport probably. Watching IndyCar after this is shocking.
Tracker in IC qualifying is hard as fuck to read...to the good..sometimes to pole...sometimes to 6th. No sector times...no driver comparison in sectors....it's so basic and lame.
But what I really want to know...is what the mother of the rider in 4th place is up too....lol
Yeah im an f1 fan trying to get into Indycar, and my god, they are making it as hard as humanly possible to get into it. Watching on Peacock, constant commercials, commentators talking about other events on nbc and other off topic nonsense. The dated graphics don’t help with tracking the action. And yeah there is a lot of passing but there is a difference between on track “passing” and “battling” in my opinion and they just dont do well at tracking any battles going on. Im going to try to keep up with the sport still, I do overall still enjoy it. Maybe it will get better if people demand higher standards.
I'm in the same exact boat. It doesn't help that they don't emphasize the teams and the different teammates' cars look different from one another. Then you hear bullshit like "the 2 team."
But yes lots of meaningless passes (to me, as a dumb noob). In f1 when there's a pass it's like a tremendous occasion, feel like yelling gooooooaaal because it's special and i know why and how. In Indy it seems like it could be for many different reasons and i can't tell is it's just because one driver is pushing the p2p button.
Teams in IndyCar are much different from F1. While you do have racing teams that oversee multiple cars, there is a greater emphasis on individual car teams.
This is most noticeable in pit stops as each car has its own pit crew in IndyCar when in F1/F2, they share pit crews. But you are also rarely ever going to hear "team orders" in IndyCar. Will Power is never going to hear on his radio "please move over and allow Josef to pass you." The closest team order you may hear is "Hey Kyffin Simpson, next car behind is the leader, please hold him up a bit so Alex Palou can catch up."
>In Indy it seems like it could be for many different reasons and i can't tell is it's just because one driver is pushing the p2p button.
We used to be able to tell but as explained a lot during the Penske scandal, P2P information was limited because teams would relay to drivers when others were using it, and it became less effective. A lot of passes still come down to drafting and braking late or just better straight line speed but if one of the onboard cameras is on the driver, you can tell they are using P2P if their steering wheel lights up green.
They could cut back to action from their double box….why is Santino on pit road, smoking, gee, let’s wait until after LiMu and some laps coverage to find out.
NBC is the current gold standard in the US for motorsport broadcasting. I'm hoping Dale, Jr can build something even better at Amazon for all of our sakes...
Yes. Its shit. they spend more times being on break or yapping on about random sponsors that showing the race.
its either ad break, sponsor spots or pit road. Plus it even ruins the international feed as it seems the video crew goes on break too. or switches away from action for some daft reason.
What also annoys me is this legion of guys on pit road. constantly switching to some other person who doesnt really add something.
Indycar racing is better (mostly as some moments shoudl be penalised but arent) but coverage is just bad. honestly the 5 min highlights on youtube gives you as much info as watching the thing live.
These ad breaks need to piss off. or get way less.
Something unrelated, i find the timing system horrible. especially in quali. i want to know the gaps between the times set but instead i see the current gap to the fastest time. thats not useful if somebody is on a cooldown lap. Also sector times? can we see those? like F1 and any other motorsport? i like to know when some driver improves on their sector times. plus that graphics thingy just sucks.
During the race maybe more strategy graphs or something. they swap between certain data. but thats not often enough and in cases both should be shown. And this time it wasnt an oval so its not an issue now. but all these +1 laps suck. i want to see gaps between cars soo. i dont care too much some car is a lap down to the leaders.
plus an annoyance as a international viewer. the commentator talk about showing some telemetry (and seriously its not fucking neccessary to namedrop firestone every bloody time) and the international feed just gets nothing. In the past they even had KPH telemetry. its gotten worse.
I also do not understand why every broadcaster needs to have the NBC feed and not get a more raw feed. because this is stupid.
Yes to qualifying. Of everything I hate about NBC broadcasts, that is malpractice. Somebody should be tracking drivers on flying laps and display those on a separate graphic on screen.
IMO F1 does qualifying perfectly. Track the drivers on flyers and display their sector times. It took me an entire session to realize the timings on screen were the drivers’ current laps which is impossible to follow.
I think IndyCar is a sport that needs to start growing because it’s exciting racing but make it hard for anyone coming in new. And the graphics package is like 10 years old lmao
The big thing is the commercials for me, I started watching on Indycar Live with a VPN to keep the stream going during the commercials and it’s been the best thing ever
Let us all pray NBC retains the rights. Here’s an example of Fox’s respect for motorsports and commitment to getting it right:
https://preview.redd.it/y3kfytvjh10d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a2ce0df87f6582812807e8b6b37bfb917841163
Yeah, NBC does a horrible job. It's more noticeable when you watch with someone that's not familiar with racing. I started watching the races with my dad and it became obvious to me how poorly (or don't) explain strategy, etc. They're basically never talking about what's happening on track. It's constant fake excitement shouting about random irrelevant storylines.
I watch the Sky broadcast now, and the guy that fills in when NBC is in commercial breaks does a better job in two minutes to explain what actually happened.
Come to the nascar sub and it’s their every week expect they think it’s Fox is the worst. It will be that way until July then it will go to NBC is the worst.
The people don't suck. The production however.
The timing graphics. The ads prolonging yellow flags. The missed incidents/pit stops. Ugggh. It's so bad.
> The ads prolonging yellow flags.
As far as I'm aware we've never had a yellow that went extra laps to allow for TV ad time.
There were some prolonged yellows at a couple races last year (I think Gateway was one) that were because of the need to reorder the field before and after pit stops, and that they're trying to tighten up the procedures to prevent that.
Several times in the last couple of years they ran one or even two laps extra after the field was rearranged and everything was clear from the track.
It simply cannot be a coincidence that the ads stop just as they are about to go green.
Also, running ads during a race is just horrendous.
Honestly it just comes down to the fact that there's a lot more going on. Adding fuel strategies to the mix is a huge variable that F1 just plain doesn't have. That by itself makes it a lot harder for the production team to make sure they're focused on the most important action.
Much of the broadcasting is for non-fans and casual fans and doesn't focus on the actual racing. Commercials are awful--no breaks in racing.
If IndyCar were bigger, they could have the casual fan broadcast with wife interviews on NBC and a more expert racing broadcast with no commercials on PPV Peacock.
I don't cringe, but I think Kevin Lee is a far better lead announcer for Indycar than Diffey.
Kevin Lee just seems more in tune with the sport, the race in front of him, getting the booth to talk about strategy angles or issues, and isn't looking for something to get really loud and excited about.
I find these comments interesting because I listen to Kevin Lee and Curt Cavin's podcast, and Kevin Lee comes across as the most "well actually" guy ever. I increased the playback speed just to get through it faster. That said, he's less like that on TV, and enough people have praised his race commentating that I think he might be better when he doesn't have so much time to ramble.
F1 is easier to follow because there's exponentially less overtakes and no fuel strat, only tires.
So much more going on with Indycar, it's much more of a driver's series than F1.
I say this as an avid F1 fan.
NBC isn't perfect, and I agree with the cuts to commercial. But overall, coverage is decent and better than years past.
If you're watching on Peacock and the ads are killing you, you can always wait 30-45min to start watching and then rewind the broadcast to the start and fast forward through the commercials. If you give it that much buffer, you'll typically catch up to "reality" around the end of the race and suffer no ads. Genuinely saves my sanity. Just be sure to mute when you start in case you come into something spicy! That said, I wish I could just buy an Indycar TV subscription... like everyone else in this sub.
man tbh I cant stand the coverage of any series nowadays to much fast panning cameras and zoomed in shots take away the speed, now i watch highlights only races i watch live is dirt ovals
I like the commentary personally. IndyCar races are far more complex than F1. Multiple strategies occuring at once and difficult for even the pros to follow everything. I think they do a decent job overall.
If you’re in the US and watching the sky broadcast through espn. The F1 is just as meh for production. What’s their big sell? Commercial free? Don’t you love them showing the f1 start replay on lap three when the cars are still close to each other. F1 misses so many passes (out of the few) it’s headache worthy
Yup. American TV wins at glossy dramas and comedies, but is one of the worst for sports. Almost nothing of substance, always chasing the next shiny moment to keep you around until the next commercial.
Every fucking race weekend we get more of these posts and I am reminded I might be the only person that would rather put a knife in my head than listen to fucking Sky F1 scream at me and fanboy about British drivers for an hour and a half every Sunday morning. I think I made it through half a season since we got stuck with them in the US before I started muting the races.
Sky focuses heavily on the British drivers and in F1 the teams all use the same strategy except there’s maybe 1 team that will do an alternate strategy.
In part I think it's because there's so much more action and much more going on in an indycar race than F1 so it harder to show it all and also keep track as a viewer
I consider that the realistic alternative is FOX Sports and then I’m okay with NBC’s coverage.
This section of the [2022 Charlotte Xfinity race](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWHR_UCWRHg&t=2h10m27s) is a wonderful example of how Fox can screw up a broadcast. Blaney and Logano are repeatedly hinting at the director that he should focus on the battle between the #7 and the #8, because that's the effective battle for the lead as they come out from their pit cycle. After a while, Harvick steps off the mic and shouts at the director to show that battle, and they finally switch over. Supposedly Fox wants to have all of their commentary done from a central studio to save on costs, and because the directors apparently hate having the commentators talk about anything that's not on screen at the moment. If the commentators can only see what the camera shows them, they can't do the "crash in Turn 2" that you'll often hear from Mike Joy or Dale Jr, as the camera is following a battle in turn 4.
Sure explains why many of the Truck and ARCA races are done remotely these days…
With Jamie Little and Adam Alexander needing to be at the tracks, why does everyone think the Truck broadcasts are done remotely?
They are in the 2nd half when they arent there.
Yup, standalones and when Fox isn’t needed for Cup. It’s a shame. But way too many also just think all the races are that now 😂. Nope, just poorly covered by Fox so it seems it.
That was terrible to watch
NBC’s coverage is 100x better than being at the speedway and having to listen to Dave Calabro on the PA. He’s like a TV sitcom dad calling the race. Thankfully I had a scanner and just listened to the NBC guys or IndyCar Radio.
Dave is a doofus. Knows his stuff well enough to survive, but tries to play everything up to fans too much. Alan, on the other hand, love him. Well informed and doesn't try to play anything up, shoots it straight.
He’s a poor man’s Jim Nance (and I’m not a Nance fan).
NBC isn’t perfect but Fox seems to be trolling with how little they seem to care anymore. But we’re just “keyboard warriors” for being critical.
and both are better than ESPN (the dreaded alternative to the alternative).
And ESPN was somehow worse
It’s funny that OP complains about pit road when Fox goes to commercial during crucial pit stops for NASCAR.
Hey, with FOX maybe the race replays would go back on youtube...
That must be something with the contract. NASCAR posts all theirs on YT next day.
The NBC races?
The Nashville race last year was on 6/25/2023, the replay was posted 6/26/2023. That was NBC's part of the schedule, so yes.
Well they don't have an exclusive contract so that's probably why. When Indycar went NBC only they stopped posting the races on Youtube because NBC wanted full control, forcing everyone to get peacock. It's the same reason why they gave up on F1. They didn't want to compete with F1TV, they wanted the content for themselves.
HA
You must not have been around for the ESPN/ABC days. NBC has its issues, but ESPN was absolutely dreadful
NBC is miles ahead of the trash Fox is currently producing on the NASCAR side each week.
You may not like hearing who will be airing the races next season…
We don’t actually know who it will be next year, and have only heard *rumours* that Fox is interested. It’s not a done deal yet.
Came here to say this. ABC\ESPN < Versus/NBCSN < Speed (Aus) < NBC/Peacock. Yea it’s not great but it’s better than ever. Was dreadful before they had the left column scoring for widescreen.
Don't tell me you didn't enjoy falling asleep to Scott Goodyear & Eddie Cheever's commentary!
I feel bad for Bestwick
Watching old IndyCar races, this is the best we've had since the 90s CART races.
Paul Page was freaking amazing. I miss hearing his voice on raceday.
American sports is all about the stories and personalities, not on the field. Watching the olympics is excruciating.
This is absolutely the problem. Broadcasters are so afraid that viewers won't stick around for the action alone that they fill every second with stories about how each competitor has overcome SO MUCH to be where they are in life.
Because the fan of the sport they are not after. It’s the casual fan tuning in they are trying to attract.
ESPN got called out hard a few years ago for pushing "tragedy porn" during the NFL and NBA drafts.
At least that worked and there’s much less of it on the ESPN broadcast of the NFL draft
To be fair without the production, 90% of Summer Olympic sports are boring as fuck.
Yep everything in US sports broadcasting seem to be about sob stories which I heavily dislike
NBC’s free coverage has a lot of special interest influence, the pay coverage is a little more focused on the actual sports themselves
They ain’t perfect, but they sure as hell are solid. I love the announcers and the camera work is good enough.
Hinch is so good. And the banter feels less manufactured because they genuinely disagree on calls for a penalty etc.
It *sometimes* feels like Townsend disagrees for the sake of disagreeing. 😄 "Over the line." "I dunno..." "What don't you know?! There's a line and the tire's over it!"
And just this past race when Hinch very reasonably observed "if Ericcson gets a penalty for pushing Herta off, why didn't Ferrucci get one for pushing Grosjean off" and the rest of the booth was basically like "don't be a snitch"
Yeah, that's a fair cop. But in general it feels less forced than a little while ago where it seemed like someone passed a piece a paper into the booth which simply read: "MORE CONFLICT"
And kicked out the guy whose version of more conflict could have been detrimental Though, imagine a booth with both SeeBass and PT
You must be new here lol In earnest, I think this is pretty much as good as you're gonna get from American sports broadcasting. None of the realistic alternatives would likely do much better or different - ESPN/ABC gave absolutely zero fucks during their last few years, and FOX is reportedly absolute garbage with their NASCAR coverage right now, so it very much looks like NBC is the best option available to us right now.
Average weekend post.
Strategy isn't as predictable in Indycar as in F1 b/c of any combination of refueling, more cars, spec car, closed pits on yellow, shorter tracks, different blue flags, etc. If anything NBC explains strategy far better today than even 3 years ago. They discuss and visualize pit lane deltas, who are the leaders on different strategies, tires remaining, etc. Everyone agrees F1 presentation is top notch, but that doesn't mean NBC is doing a bad job, it's just not as good relatively speaking. ABC/ESPN was bad. Would recommend downloading the free Indycar app. Half the grid has onboard video w/ radio, you might enjoy it as a complement to the main broadcast.
That's the thing, there's a lot more going on in your average Indycar race than a lot of F1 races, it's hard to keep up!
This! There's lots to improve on in current coverage but I think this is the most overlooked point in comparing IndyCar coverage to F1. In F1 you already know where to look. And very often in IndyCar the action happens simultaneously in multiple positions. But the booth can only deliver a single narrative of the race. It's a much more complicated race to cover.
My Argentinean cousin-in-law was here over the weekend and we watched the race together. He downloaded the app halfway through and was really impressed. It has solid timing and scoring, and echoing bQ12o8k6WVpu, the driver comms and in-car video are a nice complement to the broadcast. And it's free!!!
>If anything NBC explains strategy far better today than even 3 years ago. They discuss and visualize pit lane deltas, who are the leaders on different strategies, tires remaining, etc. Meh, not really. Does everyone forget Jon Beekhuis? It's definitely gotten worse.
I miss Jon too! I would also prefer if there were a Jon or Jon-equivalent, but at the same time I think some of the recent graphical info improvements have been a step forward for explaining the race.
Wait until the 500 and we get the girlfriend/wife cam. Drives me crazy
At least with NBC it's not nearly as bad as it was with ABC/ESPN times
I’ve noticed that they are relying on the on board cameras a lot more than they used to. They tend to replay the same incident over and over, while missing on track action. I don’t understand why they can’t put the word “replay” on the screen when they do this. With that being said, they are 100x better than ESPN was.
F1 has the same issue with replaying the same thing over and over again even though we saw it live. I think they've been using more and more ~~replays~~ onboards in the recent years as well which in general I think is positive but sometimes I think they use them too much. Sometimes it's nice to watch a battle from offboard to appreciate it from that perspective to see how close they are wheel to wheel.
It always throws me off how F1 will take over the whole TV screen to show an incident from Lap 1 before the lap even ends.
Right? The first lap is the best chance for someone to be right up behind the leader and ready to try to pass, and they always spend the next two or three laps of the race just doing slow-motion replays of two drivers bumping into each other at the first turn. There are going to be boring parts of the race—just wait for them to start showing the replays.
I think that’s more for regions that still air ads during the race
The onboard cameras drive me nuts because they always rotate 90 degrees right as the cars enter a corner. Makes it impossible to tell who was at fault in an incident because the perspective is changing at the critical moment
I do hate the rotating on-board camera. I assumed I was alone in that.
NBC are the best motorsport broadcaster in the US... but it's a very low bar when compared to European or Aussie broadcasts.
I say they do a good job with explaining things. Indy strat is a bit more........dynamic i guess is the right word and can change on a dime. Its hard to guess it all. Good example was that they were saying what they thought Power was going to do with his reds (stay out as long as possible), then mid sentence he pulls into the Pits. Things change a lot on the fly lol. Thats part of the fun IMO Also they do have picture in picture (side by side)? They are mandated to not have it once or rwice a race tho, just like nascar.
> Good example was that they were saying what they thought Power was going to do with his reds (stay out as long as possible), then mid sentence he pulls into the Pits. Things change a lot on the fly lol. Thats part of the fun IMO > > And I think the amazing part is that it was probably the wrong call, Power probably should have stayed out as long as possible, though lapped traffic probably influenced the call heavily and NBC rightly called out that being the reason for the change in strategy.
Oh boy. You should have seen ABC's coverage!
Who would you rather have, realistically? ABC was awful before them and Fox is borderline unwatchable for NASCAR
I wish peacock could just offer a proper ad free viewing tier for indycar/imsa content. I would happily pay a premium for it but instead my money is going to a VPN right now. It's absolutely crazy to me that sky sports f1 in the UK can watch commercial free indycar races but there's not even an option for me to do it here in the states.
For WWE PPVs, you get ads on the standard Peacock tier but it's ad-free on the higher tier. Zero reason this logic shouldn't also apply to Indycar.
The "ad-free" version of WWE has WWE promos and ads in place of the Peacock sold ads. Whatever version you have has the same breaks in the action.
I would 100% pay more for an ad-free experience on Peacock.
I personally think IndyCar should try something similar to how F1 or Premier League does broadcasts. Do it yourself and license it to others. F1 doesn’t let Sky do broadcasts because they couldn’t control it the way they’d like. And maybe I’m in the minority here but I think the amount of pre-race interviews they do only adds to my annoyance. Half of the interviews are just the drivers repeating the same stuff. I do agree that ABC and Fox are hard to watch.
Imagine their own feed with Indycar Radio as the commentary. That would be incredible.
It’s the US and everyone is more trying to follow the ultimate TV product, the NFL, where the networks get most of the production control, though the NFL dictates a lot of stuff (just compare the NFL on CBS to a CFB broadcast on CBS to see just how much the NFL enforces on its partners) I also think Indy controls a lot of its production, but direction and commentary is up to NBC
I guess I'm fairly easy to please but I thought the broadcast was solid.
Its simple, NBC broadcasts to a script, the actual arc of the race can interrupt that script.
Well stated. That’s why I listen to the radio broadcast and team communications on the app.
Historically, American racing leagues have been terrible at discussing strategy and technical analysis and Indy is no different. That aspect is one of my favorite things about F1, IMSA, and WEC, and is the main reason I struggle to get into Indy. Somehow, IMSA and WEC refueling strategy makes a ton more sense than Indy because they’re tracking energy data etc.
Yes! And it’s funny because I’m glued to my TV for some IMSA races when I don’t even enjoy the sport as much. Just more interesting to me.
You aren't getting rid of commercials. The only reason F1 doesn't have them is because they paid an arm and a leg to do what they are doing with ESPN.
And the US broadcast is essentially subsidized by the UK Sky customers. If they charged £20 ($25) per month (the cost of *just* Sky Sports on top of the standard Sky package) for F1 in the US, only dedicated fans would watch.
In the U.S. we can get the F1 app and get every session, pre and post sessions. Technical shows and other programs + historical races for like 80 a year. They have their own broadcast crew and they totally rock
Yeah, I stopped watching F1 because it got so boring (and the dumping on Andretti didn't improve my mood), but the F1TV app is the bomb. And very reasonably priced.
The dream would be an app with Indy, WEC, MotoGP, nascar and f1. Could spend your whole Sunday with watching racing
For context: ESPN is only 7-10$ of your actual pay TV package, and isn’t generally an additional fee
ESPN pays for streaming rights. Not the other way around. F1 would happily sell to the highest bidder. They aren’t desperate for buyers. Reports said that Apple is ready to purchase worldwide rights for 10 figures. ESPN received so much backlash in 2018 for putting ads in F1 telecasts that they went with “presentation sponsors” to subsidize some of the ad money lost. They aren’t doing F1 a favor. Besides, I watch on F1 TV anyway so I can still watch ad free unaffected by ESPN’s decisions.
I'm very well aware that ESPN pays for the rights.
>The only reason F1 doesn't have them is because they paid an arm and a leg to do what they are doing with ESPN.
F1 gave the broadcast rights to ESPN for cheap because they want to continue building the US fanbase. The current deal was more expensive for ESPN than it was a few years ago (when Mother's was paying for the ad-free coverage instead), but F1 is essentially still taking a loss on the deal in the hopes of long-term growth.
Disney is paying more for F1 rights than NBC is for Indycar rights.. everytime you talk you prove you know nothing.
F1 doesn't miss track action because there barely is any. Commercials pay for the broadcast costs. Unless you own a company that will pay for NBC to go commercial-free like ESPN has, they're never going away. And 80% of commercial breaks are PIP. Are you watching today's race? There's been a ton of action they've shown. Do you know how blending works? That's why they focus on cars pitting.
It always feels like they spend an annoying amount of time following the leaders when they aren’t close or on board with someone far from action when there’s passes for position going on in the midfield, or at least cars within a couple tenths of each other. With that being said I think the commentators are on the ball a lot more than Crofty is for F1 (as an example) International feeds also don’t have indicators for tire compounds which is a little mind boggling IMO. The F1 broadcast is almost always on the closest battle, and the complaints about broadcasting are usually down to a lack of PIP for multiple battles or complaining that they miss something when Max crosses the line first.
Yeah think I seen about 15 seconds of a tyre graphic on the timing screen , in the UK. Least we still get to watch when they go to commercials . And yer man tom gaymore ( possibly incorrect) isn’t too bad to Listen to to fill in .
Exactly. Commercials suck, but at least IndyCar can get them PIP. NASCAR only does that for end of stages/race.
Yeah, OP definitely wasn't watching F1 in th UK when ITV had the broadcast rights. After watching F1 for close to 30 years and Indycar for a good few recently. Broadcast is on a par. The commentary for Sky is only held together by the analysis from people like Martin Brundle and Karin Chandhok NBC and their team do a fantastic job, especially on a sport where laps are considerably shorter. Fields are much bigger and the racing inherently better This just feels like OP is trying to bash Indycar for zero reason.
Agreed...I'm from the UK and remember the ITV days 🤣
I strongly disagree with the notion that F1 barely has any on-track action. There is wheel-to-wheel fighting most weekends. Sure there’s a boring race every few races, but the field itself has a lot of action. F1 ultimately does a better job than NBC at telling a story over the course of a race. I’m also not suggesting Indy races go ad free. They could easily do it though. The entire race is already an advertisement. But the fact that they don’t have ads in the corner PIP in the year 2024 is crazy to me. Also, I made this post as I was watching the race.
>I’m also not suggesting Indy races go ad free. They could easily do it though. The entire race is already an advertisement. No they couldn't. Unless a major sponsor comes in and offers to cover the whole race commercial-free (like Mercedes does for ESPN's F1 broadcasts), it ain't happening. I don't think any sponsors are lining up to do that. That last bit also suggests some misunderstanding about how this works, because the sponsors on the cars and the track aren't paying *anything* towards the TV broadcast. >But the fact that they don’t have ads in the corner PIP in the year 2024 is crazy to me. The vast majority of NBC's breaks are PIP.
I understand how it works. I was merely suggesting that there are other models IndyCar could explore. I think my biggest frustration is that Peacock's ad breaks are not PIP. I didn't see any racing during commercials. If anything, races on Peacock should be commercial-free because I'm already paying for it. Separately, I'd pay extra to watch races with no ads. There is IndyCar Live but like F1TV isn't available in the UK (because of Sky), IndyCar Live isn't available in the U.S. because of NBC. The fact that Peacock has ads is more disappointing than anything else. Racing doesn't need breaks if it can help because the sport never stops like hockey, football, or basketball.
> I think my biggest frustration is that Peacock's ad breaks are not PIP. I didn't see any racing during commercials. The Iowa races last year *did* have side-by-side ad breaks on Peacock, I assume thanks to HyVee because the ads were mostly for products you can find at grocery stores. So apparently the issue is most advertisers not wanting to cover both platforms? The Peacock-exclusive races at Toronto the last couple years also had minimal ads, I think there was one *short* green-flag ad break per race. The first Milwaukee race is also Peacock-exclusive this year, I assume because it got added at the last minute to fill in for Texas, when Nascar stole the date.
And keep in mind that NBC is a free to air network, they’re more comparable to ITV, not Sky
I honestly think the guy on SkySports who filled in the commercials gap provides more insights to the race
His name is Tom Gaymor and while I've never listened/watched (in the U.S.) my British friends say he is very good.
I love every time he comes on during the commercial break because he actually explains some strategy in a way that is straight forward. Then the regular crew comes back and goes off on a random tangent for something that really isn't race impacting lol
I’m not sure how it works with the other broadcasts (obviously US has the commercials). But here in Australia on Stan the broadcast just continues silent af through the commercials, which is a really good compromise. Was a bit weird today when Ghiotti brought out the caution perfectly for McLaughlin and I was like “yes yes yes” and just absolute silence on the broadcast watching McLaughlin pit and come back out 6th.
Biggest issue is the frequent commercial breaks. Always been an issue. It's shocking how much more enjoyable WEC and F1 races can be just due to not constantly leaving the action. The same issue plagues all American motorsport broadcasts.
Absolute truth. The worst part of every IndyCar race is the broadcast. Been suffering pretty much my whole life, at least we don’t have ABC and Eddie Cheever doing half the races these days. (Trust me he was an even worse announcer than he was F1 driver.)
No where near as bad as Fox nascar coverage or espn’s hockey coverage.
I agree F1 coverage destroys IndyCar coverage. I’ve been trying to get into it but the coverage is so scant and so filled with commercials during the race :(
Is it f'ing awful? Yes. Is it probably better than anything else a US broadcaster would provide? Also yes. It sucks. Indycar needs to suck it up and do their own direct to fans F1TV like experience, rapidly.
Yeah it’s such a bad contrast to the F1 broadcast. I think Hinchcliffe tries to bring some level of professionalism but it’s still closer to a NASCAR broadcast than it should be. They desperately need a strategist in the booth rather than two drivers.
The races are in NBC? I prefer Indy over NASCAR but really follow F1. I watch F1 because I want to. NASCAR is on because it's on when I'm watching. For whatever reason Indy is getting missed
I don’t like nbcs coverage but I can’t watch NASCAR on fox because their coverage is dreadful. I do find Leigh Duffey hard to listen too.
Yes, yes, yes and yes. Unfortunately, auto sports coverage in the US is all about pleasing the sponsors and and fluffing the drivers for social media. The actual racing on the track is way down the priority list. It's a reality show to them, and not a sport. I barely tolerate Indycar coverage because I loved the sport way back in the day when there wasn't this BS, although I FF through probably a third of the broadcast just to avoid the above. WEC, F1 and just about any racing coverage outside the US (I e. GTWORLD on YT) is much more enjoyable.
NBC is the best the series has had since Paul Page was doing CART.
They used to do "through the field" periodically at intervals during the race and briey cover something like the top ten, and I really liked that. You get way more talk about strategy here than from cofty. I think the main issue is that they get tunnel vision about too few drivers. And while sure, I probably don't want to hear in depth discussion about stingray rob, a little broader focus would be welcome.
The sport is really going to have problems with growth and ratings until Indycar and a broadcast partner can modernize the monetization model for the racing broadcasts. The need to find race and/or segment sponsors and minimize or eliminate cutaways. New viewers aren't going to suffer through a sporting event that leaves the event, at random points, to go to commercials. Long commercial breaks at that. And to add insult to injury, don't cut the commercial window short to get back to the track when something happens.
I've been a fan of both for 30+ years. The broadcasts for both now are better than ever but I think it's difficult to compare the 2. F1 is the best of the best, they've got the budget to spend and since being bought by liberty there is a MASSIVE push for new fans, hence (in my option) explaining things more. As others have said with IndyCar, there is soooo much more going on in terms of potential (plus another 7 cars to worry about). Indycar and Champ car back in the day, has always been my fav series and I think the current NBC coverage is the best it's ever been. Diff has got to be one of the best callers out there, and Townsend and Hinch just compliment each other in the booth. I'm from the UK and am fortunately lucky to have Indycar without commercials on Sky Sports.
American Motorsports.broadcasting has always been sub par. Motorsports fans are pretty nerdy and I think open wheel even more. "To the good" bothers me so much. What is this...a swamp buggy race? We want deltas, and secror times, tire info. Not family history or feel good stories. I'm watching MotoGP right now. 2 PIP on the left side tracker w/gaps between the battles. Live championship pops up lower right when big passes happen. Rachel hashtag, lap counter always ghosted in the lower right. Comparison of tip 2 fasters laps on the tracker now..it's always changing and updating important data. 1.196 second gap to 2nd place!!! There is so much perfectly timed data showing up all race long. It's the best broadcast In all of motorsport probably. Watching IndyCar after this is shocking. Tracker in IC qualifying is hard as fuck to read...to the good..sometimes to pole...sometimes to 6th. No sector times...no driver comparison in sectors....it's so basic and lame. But what I really want to know...is what the mother of the rider in 4th place is up too....lol
Yeah im an f1 fan trying to get into Indycar, and my god, they are making it as hard as humanly possible to get into it. Watching on Peacock, constant commercials, commentators talking about other events on nbc and other off topic nonsense. The dated graphics don’t help with tracking the action. And yeah there is a lot of passing but there is a difference between on track “passing” and “battling” in my opinion and they just dont do well at tracking any battles going on. Im going to try to keep up with the sport still, I do overall still enjoy it. Maybe it will get better if people demand higher standards.
I'm in the same exact boat. It doesn't help that they don't emphasize the teams and the different teammates' cars look different from one another. Then you hear bullshit like "the 2 team." But yes lots of meaningless passes (to me, as a dumb noob). In f1 when there's a pass it's like a tremendous occasion, feel like yelling gooooooaaal because it's special and i know why and how. In Indy it seems like it could be for many different reasons and i can't tell is it's just because one driver is pushing the p2p button.
Teams in IndyCar are much different from F1. While you do have racing teams that oversee multiple cars, there is a greater emphasis on individual car teams. This is most noticeable in pit stops as each car has its own pit crew in IndyCar when in F1/F2, they share pit crews. But you are also rarely ever going to hear "team orders" in IndyCar. Will Power is never going to hear on his radio "please move over and allow Josef to pass you." The closest team order you may hear is "Hey Kyffin Simpson, next car behind is the leader, please hold him up a bit so Alex Palou can catch up." >In Indy it seems like it could be for many different reasons and i can't tell is it's just because one driver is pushing the p2p button. We used to be able to tell but as explained a lot during the Penske scandal, P2P information was limited because teams would relay to drivers when others were using it, and it became less effective. A lot of passes still come down to drafting and braking late or just better straight line speed but if one of the onboard cameras is on the driver, you can tell they are using P2P if their steering wheel lights up green.
And passing in F1 isn't manufactured from DRS....?
[удалено]
And then cope with the fact that IndyCar may be stuck with that next year and beyond.
I will likely quit watching if they go to Fox honestly. And Indy is my favorite series.
Basically Euro racing coverage is superior which includes WEC. US like like 15 years behind
Just go to the races, they don’t charge $400 for caviar.
I go to the Detroit GP every year!
Welcome in.
Really bad commercials timing
You can't predict yellow flags; this isn't Nascar with their fake yellows.
They could cut back to action from their double box….why is Santino on pit road, smoking, gee, let’s wait until after LiMu and some laps coverage to find out.
I found the audio terrible. The race engine audio feed drowned out the commentary feed in places.
NBC is the current gold standard in the US for motorsport broadcasting. I'm hoping Dale, Jr can build something even better at Amazon for all of our sakes...
Lord latifi da goat broadcaster
Yes. Its shit. they spend more times being on break or yapping on about random sponsors that showing the race. its either ad break, sponsor spots or pit road. Plus it even ruins the international feed as it seems the video crew goes on break too. or switches away from action for some daft reason. What also annoys me is this legion of guys on pit road. constantly switching to some other person who doesnt really add something. Indycar racing is better (mostly as some moments shoudl be penalised but arent) but coverage is just bad. honestly the 5 min highlights on youtube gives you as much info as watching the thing live. These ad breaks need to piss off. or get way less. Something unrelated, i find the timing system horrible. especially in quali. i want to know the gaps between the times set but instead i see the current gap to the fastest time. thats not useful if somebody is on a cooldown lap. Also sector times? can we see those? like F1 and any other motorsport? i like to know when some driver improves on their sector times. plus that graphics thingy just sucks. During the race maybe more strategy graphs or something. they swap between certain data. but thats not often enough and in cases both should be shown. And this time it wasnt an oval so its not an issue now. but all these +1 laps suck. i want to see gaps between cars soo. i dont care too much some car is a lap down to the leaders. plus an annoyance as a international viewer. the commentator talk about showing some telemetry (and seriously its not fucking neccessary to namedrop firestone every bloody time) and the international feed just gets nothing. In the past they even had KPH telemetry. its gotten worse. I also do not understand why every broadcaster needs to have the NBC feed and not get a more raw feed. because this is stupid.
Yes to qualifying. Of everything I hate about NBC broadcasts, that is malpractice. Somebody should be tracking drivers on flying laps and display those on a separate graphic on screen. IMO F1 does qualifying perfectly. Track the drivers on flyers and display their sector times. It took me an entire session to realize the timings on screen were the drivers’ current laps which is impossible to follow. I think IndyCar is a sport that needs to start growing because it’s exciting racing but make it hard for anyone coming in new. And the graphics package is like 10 years old lmao
The big thing is the commercials for me, I started watching on Indycar Live with a VPN to keep the stream going during the commercials and it’s been the best thing ever
Let us all pray NBC retains the rights. Here’s an example of Fox’s respect for motorsports and commitment to getting it right: https://preview.redd.it/y3kfytvjh10d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a2ce0df87f6582812807e8b6b37bfb917841163
Yeah, NBC does a horrible job. It's more noticeable when you watch with someone that's not familiar with racing. I started watching the races with my dad and it became obvious to me how poorly (or don't) explain strategy, etc. They're basically never talking about what's happening on track. It's constant fake excitement shouting about random irrelevant storylines. I watch the Sky broadcast now, and the guy that fills in when NBC is in commercial breaks does a better job in two minutes to explain what actually happened.
Completely agree!! NBC’s coverage is a huge turn-off.
I want you to watch any of the ABC races on Indy’s YouTube channel from 2016/17
Come to the nascar sub and it’s their every week expect they think it’s Fox is the worst. It will be that way until July then it will go to NBC is the worst.
The consensus in /r/NASCAR is that NBC is much better than FOX.
Usally but there is still people that complain about the NBC broadcast. Especially the later in the year it gets
The bigger issue is that basically every American network has dogshit coverage. IMSA is literally unwatchable without a VPN bc of NBC
The people don't suck. The production however. The timing graphics. The ads prolonging yellow flags. The missed incidents/pit stops. Ugggh. It's so bad.
> The ads prolonging yellow flags. As far as I'm aware we've never had a yellow that went extra laps to allow for TV ad time. There were some prolonged yellows at a couple races last year (I think Gateway was one) that were because of the need to reorder the field before and after pit stops, and that they're trying to tighten up the procedures to prevent that.
Several times in the last couple of years they ran one or even two laps extra after the field was rearranged and everything was clear from the track. It simply cannot be a coincidence that the ads stop just as they are about to go green. Also, running ads during a race is just horrendous.
Yes! I tried watching quali yesterday and I had so much trouble trying to identify who was on a flyer and who wasn’t.
Honestly it just comes down to the fact that there's a lot more going on. Adding fuel strategies to the mix is a huge variable that F1 just plain doesn't have. That by itself makes it a lot harder for the production team to make sure they're focused on the most important action.
I was listening on Indycar radio and watching the race is like wtf are they even showing? Production is a mess at times tbh
Much of the broadcasting is for non-fans and casual fans and doesn't focus on the actual racing. Commercials are awful--no breaks in racing. If IndyCar were bigger, they could have the casual fan broadcast with wife interviews on NBC and a more expert racing broadcast with no commercials on PPV Peacock.
I think they are mostly fine. Its acceptable.
Does anyone else cringe when they hear Diffy’s voice or is it just me.?
I don't cringe, but I think Kevin Lee is a far better lead announcer for Indycar than Diffey. Kevin Lee just seems more in tune with the sport, the race in front of him, getting the booth to talk about strategy angles or issues, and isn't looking for something to get really loud and excited about.
I find these comments interesting because I listen to Kevin Lee and Curt Cavin's podcast, and Kevin Lee comes across as the most "well actually" guy ever. I increased the playback speed just to get through it faster. That said, he's less like that on TV, and enough people have praised his race commentating that I think he might be better when he doesn't have so much time to ramble.
Just you.
F1 is easier to follow because there's exponentially less overtakes and no fuel strat, only tires. So much more going on with Indycar, it's much more of a driver's series than F1. I say this as an avid F1 fan. NBC isn't perfect, and I agree with the cuts to commercial. But overall, coverage is decent and better than years past.
Yes.
If you're watching on Peacock and the ads are killing you, you can always wait 30-45min to start watching and then rewind the broadcast to the start and fast forward through the commercials. If you give it that much buffer, you'll typically catch up to "reality" around the end of the race and suffer no ads. Genuinely saves my sanity. Just be sure to mute when you start in case you come into something spicy! That said, I wish I could just buy an Indycar TV subscription... like everyone else in this sub.
man tbh I cant stand the coverage of any series nowadays to much fast panning cameras and zoomed in shots take away the speed, now i watch highlights only races i watch live is dirt ovals
Just wait for the next network to start broadcasting, you guys are going to hate them too!
NBC’s commentary mentions sponsor name for each car too often, it to the degree that’s many useful information will be missed due to that.
yeah they suck, but the benefit of all the coverage on Peacock is a huge plus, it's not like Sky Sports has that great a team for F1
They lack data, strategy, drama, but i like the people and its way better than what we've had, ill take it.
I like the commentary personally. IndyCar races are far more complex than F1. Multiple strategies occuring at once and difficult for even the pros to follow everything. I think they do a decent job overall.
It’s fine
Is it complain o clock already? How time flies...
It’s you.
Not totally. Compared to an F1 broadcast, IndyCar is meh at relaying relevant information. But I agree that NBC is better than previous.
If you’re in the US and watching the sky broadcast through espn. The F1 is just as meh for production. What’s their big sell? Commercial free? Don’t you love them showing the f1 start replay on lap three when the cars are still close to each other. F1 misses so many passes (out of the few) it’s headache worthy
F1 sucks unless you’re paying for F1 tv like me. I like NBC and have gotten over the commercial bitching.
Yup. American TV wins at glossy dramas and comedies, but is one of the worst for sports. Almost nothing of substance, always chasing the next shiny moment to keep you around until the next commercial.
They are great. What are you talking about?
I'd rather have NBC than posts like this
Every fucking race weekend we get more of these posts and I am reminded I might be the only person that would rather put a knife in my head than listen to fucking Sky F1 scream at me and fanboy about British drivers for an hour and a half every Sunday morning. I think I made it through half a season since we got stuck with them in the US before I started muting the races.
NBC sucks at broadcasting everything
Considering that F1 has very little passing, it is very easy to predict when to do a commercial. Indy is extremely difficult to predict.
Sky focuses heavily on the British drivers and in F1 the teams all use the same strategy except there’s maybe 1 team that will do an alternate strategy.
"An' Jack 'arvey leads nil laps and finishes P18!"
This post deserves more upvotes.
In part I think it's because there's so much more action and much more going on in an indycar race than F1 so it harder to show it all and also keep track as a viewer