This previous Sunday (Feb. 19), we watched one other Daytona 500 seize our collective consideration, maintain us to its whims for over three hours, after which produce a caution-flag end that felt a little bit anticlimactic.
After all, that final sentiment might not be everybody’s, but it surely actually appeared to be a well-liked sentiment.
Seeing Ricky Stenhouse Jr. earn the massive trophy didn’t come as a shock to many, but it surely didn’t elicit the sort of stars-shining second that the Daytona 500 is seemingly supposed to supply. As an alternative, the journeyman driver, now with three wins over the course of his 12-year profession, parks his automotive in Daytona for all to see over the course of the subsequent season.
That Stenhouse has wrecked a lot that he endures a litany of nicknames extolling his accomplishments is one thing to be skipped for now. As an alternative, the goofiness of plate-racing has once more given method to a winner that seems to be extra of a protracted shot than a famous person. If NASCAR is hoping that the most recent automotive has actually introduced parity to the game, then maybe this win is an extra indication of its deserves.
The notion of parity is supposed to be one which helps promote the game to each followers and buyers – groups, sponsors, and networks. And if promoting the game to the plenty is the very important factor, which it’s in any business enterprise, then how was the published so…
Fundamental?
For everybody not current on the sold-out Daytona Worldwide Speedway, the best way to concentrate got here by TV, radio, and social media. The dominant mode being, in fact, TV – for which FOX pays a dump truck stuffed with gold cash (and the explanation that the published is bloated with commercials).
Whereas the commentators benefit from the wrath of followers, this isn’t the second to go after Mike Pleasure, Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Chris Myers, Jamie McMurray, and the remainder of the various crew stationed throughout the observe. For certain, they deserve important engagement and so they had been hardly stellar for kicking off NASCAR’s diamond season. (By the best way, did you discover that NASCAR is celebrating its seventy fifth anniversary?)
No, as an alternative, the main target right here is on how easy the published seemed. One of many wonders of TV is the way it advances. Airing sports activities has come splendidly far since Thomas Edison and his crew started filming video games on the flip of the twentieth century, transferring past single-camera photographs and curious angles.
After WWII, MLB acknowledged that the center-field shot was integral to creating baseball a sellable TV product. Since then, sports activities broadcasts have proven imaginative innovation, some good, some dangerous. From slow-motion, to the first-down line in soccer, to the glowing hockey puck (egads), to Subsequent Gen stats and all the info they provide, sports activities proceed to evolve in the way it brings the viewer to the occasion.
That’s what makes the 2023 Daytona 500 broadcast so disappointing. The large reveal for the race: a small digital camera affixed to the cushioning of a driverʻs helmet that offers their perspective whereas turning laps.
Kewl.
Not solely had been viewers imagined to be wowed by this not-so-revolutionary know-how, however they had been additionally subjected to a full Mike Pleasure seminar on how this eraser-sized digital camera got here to be and why everybody must be singing its praises.
What made it a laughable product was evinced when the digital camera confirmed the digital dashboards and the data was blurred. Blocking this info distracts from the entire level of making an attempt to position the viewer contained in the automotive. If the aim is to offer an genuine viewpoint, the failure fee is said to the lack of info being transmitted to the viewer. And simply what’s it that groups really feel the necessity to conceal?
In Components 1, broadcasts ceaselessly supply viewpoints from the cockpit that give an enormous quantity of data that different groups may attempt to waste their time deciphering. Figuring out how tense the F1 paddock is, every staff most likely has somebody in place that does such a job, which can be a joke, but additionally reveals how little impact it has on really gaining any floor.
Mercedes was not going to abruptly soar Pink Bull final yr as a result of they had been in a position to parse the telemetry in such a means that abruptly gave them a tenth on the observe. So what do NASCAR groups, with their comparatively less complicated know-how, suppose that they’re hiding from different groups?
Ludicrous, absurd, foolish, and idiotic descriptors come to thoughts.
What has occurred to progressive know-how and race broadcasts? At one level, FOX tried to indicate that it was on the forefront with NASCAR. We had thermal imaging, we acquired aero graphics to indicate higher what’s going on with the vehicles and the way drivers discover benefits. At one level, we even had the ghost automotive – which was an excellent method to evaluate the strains that drivers took on the observe.
For the five hundred, the helmet cam got here as the good transfer ahead. By no means thoughts that it looks as if this type of toy is coming a yr or two late, the vital and disappointing side is that the game shouldn’t be showcasing know-how because it ought to.
If followers will be given speedy perception that Tyreek Hill hit the 24 mph mark on a landing catch, then shouldnʻt NASCAR do higher? The know-how and data is already built-in to the game!
How about providing stay info on tire pressures? What about deceleration speeds in crashes? How come there may be no more lap-by-lap differentials in velocity? The place are the graphics exhibiting how the climate results the vehicles? Or one thing exhibiting grip and tire degradation? What about chances that come from a supply aside from Larry McReynolds and his calculator?!
The game is limiting itself in how restricted the manufacturing is. The NFL and F1 have each discovered methods to make use of Amazonʻs otherworldly laptop processing capabilities to offer followers new methods of seeing the game (worthwhile or not) however FOX looks as if it’s caught within the mid-2000s, making an attempt to financial institution its broadcast on character fairly than giving the followers one thing distinctive.
Clint Bowyer could also be a terrific man to drink some beers with, and Mike Pleasure could also be a strolling encyclopedia, but it surely’s time to see a little bit extra and to embrace advances in know-how.
In spite of everything, this piece was written by chatgp. (Kidding.)
