NASCAR Gets a Downgrade

Feel free to disagree with me, but I think when you get banished to ESPN Classic as a current sport, you’ve taken a step down…

That’s where this year’s NASCAR Nextel Cup Awards Ceremony will be broadcast live beginning at 9 tonight (Friday). Jerry Punch will serve as Master of Ceremonies, David Spade will provide some comedy and Kelly Clarkson will perform “One Minute” and “Since U Been Gone.”

For those of you who don’t have ESPN Classic, you can catch a taped version on ESPN2, but you’ll either have to stay up late or set your VCRs/DVRs because it doesn’t air until midnight. And as of now, ESPN2 (or ESPN, for that matter) has no plans to air it again at a more reasonable hour.

I would call that a significant downgrade…

Now granted, the Awards Ceremony is basically 12 drivers stumbling over bad speeches while trying to read them off the teleprompter, but still. A network spends all season promoting the crap out of a sport and then can’t even find a decent place to air the Awards Ceremony that wraps it up?

Maybe this should give NASCAR the wake-up call it needs to put an end to the bad speeches running on the teleprompter and come up with a decent ceremony…

By the way, according to NASCAR.com, you can also watch it live at http://www.espn360.com/...


The photo in this post is of 2007 Nextel Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson and his crew chief Chad Knauss goofing around in New York where the Awards Ceremony takes place...