Fox Sports & SPEED TV team up on F1 broadcasting
Broadcasting motor racing in America is a big business. Unfortunately for F1, which enjoys the biggest audiences overseas, they're not the only game in town in the good ol' US of A. NASCAR, drag racing, Indy cars and a myriad other motorsports draw racing fans while F1 coverage has been spotty.
Now Fox Sports and SPEED TV, two Newscorp channels, have inked out a new three-year deal to share the US broadcast rights of the grands prix . The deal will see four races (Indianapolis, Canada, France and Britain) carried by Fox Sports, and the other 13 races will be covered live (including practice and qualifying) by SPEED.
Hosting the program will be Bob Varsha, joined by commentary from former F1 driver David Hobbs and former F1 mechanic Steve Matchett, plus pit-lane commentary by F1 journo-extraordinaire Peter Windsor.
So, for the next three years at least, American viewers will get consistent coverage of the grand prix racing action.
[Source: GrandPrix.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
What?! 4:32PM (12/03/2006)
Speed Channel is owned by Fox, and there's a good chance most of the commentary will be remote (or whatever the industry does for live feed and commentary, not on location shows).
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Richard Warren 7:26AM (12/04/2006)
And the coverage will be "Fair and Balanced"
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Prius Power in San Marino 4:59PM (12/03/2006)
What?! :
Which is completely logical for an american company covering a european sport. Sending a team of three commentators all over the continent and then to the asian races isn't worth the trouble for the very little insight they would pick up from sitting in their booth at the track and commenting on the video feed. They can watch that feed from anywhere, so why send them to the races?
The format will probably remain the same: hobbes, matchett, and varsha in a studio, and windsor running around the venue looking for soundbites. I think it works pretty well. I'm ecstatic we're ridding ourselves of that CBS announcer. Whatever his name was, he could read car numbers and driver names, gush over cars "crashing over curbs," and that was about it.
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Steve 9:58PM (12/03/2006)
Oh god they better use Varsha, Matchett, and Hobbs; I shudder when I remember the network coverage of Monaco this year...
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Jeff 7:09PM (12/03/2006)
Oh man! so true about the lame commentator on CBS. Derek Daly, he's a good driver, but bad commentator. I wanted to pount my head against a wall whenever he was announcing. If they keep the same format on Fox that they have on Speed, I think it will be OK. We need to get Americans into real racing, rather than that Nascar crap, which is the WWE of the racing world. Entertaining for a minute, but only if you're (very) drunk.
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MCS05 7:43PM (12/03/2006)
Next step is broadcasting in high definition. I just have not heard when.
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Rocket Punch 7:46PM (12/03/2006)
^^^ agree!
Just put the mic down Derek Daly, and put your hands above your head!
Don't make me use the Taser!
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Mulvey 8:12PM (12/03/2006)
This is a step in the right direction, now they need to replace Varsha and those other two idiots. Varsha either deliberately (I think) or accidentally mispronounces almost every drivers name and is a very negative guy when commentating. Hobbs never could drive very well and his jealousy for the new crowd in F1 is just pathetic. Say what you want about Daly, he is a very positive commentator and an obvious fan. Those three old queens on Speed were so negative about Shumacher it was sad really. I think they hated him because he would not grant them an interview and why should he? They laughed and cheered when Michael had bad luck and had nothing but sour grapes when he won. I watch almost every race with the sound off on Speed and I love to hear Daly on CBS. Varsha can't even pronounce Senna's name and the man has been dead for years...
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Mr. N. Disguise 8:19PM (12/03/2006)
I fail to see why Speed does not create a seperate network for Nascrap (oops) and one for all other motorsports. I think they are really missing a huge opportunity to attract a new type of customer, and an affluent one as well who enjoys motorsports but not NASCAR. F1, World Rally etc etc, bring it on.
Speed dropped World Rally this past year so I dropped Speed.
You suck. Thank gosh that in Canada we get the British F1 ITV team commentary and not the Varsha-version.
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Prius Power in San Marino 8:29PM (12/03/2006)
Loves Daly (so that's his name) but shuns any sound during Speed broadcasts. Wow.
I think Varsha's in good company in this country being unable to pronounce some of those german, french, and especially finnish names. You think anyone but europeans really know how to pronounce those umlauts and carbon chain looking vowel series?
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Mulvey 8:50PM (12/03/2006)
Prius, I'll bet you are a NASCAR fan, am I right? Only a person of low character would revel in ignorance. I think you'll find that most europeans take the time to learn how to pronounce simple names like Jacques for example, yet Varsha calls him "Jack" .. keep posting , it confirms my thought that ignorance is number one in the USA. F1 has the largest audience in the world and a pathetic followimg in the USA, home and last bastion of the inch...
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Prius Power in San Marino 9:44PM (12/03/2006)
I think you'll find that many Americans like the excitement and technical intricacy of F1 racing, but not the elitism and insular attitudes that the drivers and teams exude. It's really a club of exclusvity that shuts out the majority. Consider that before you make any assumptions about the intellectual discipline of myself or the rest of the motorsport spectating public in the U.S. When no team in the league will give the three time world champ (Bourdais) of an American series a chance at a single grand prix racing seat, it's little wonder that we dislike F1. I'm afraid your assessment of why this country doesn't like F1 - allusion to the american retention of the English measurement system included - is completely superficial.
Cheers.
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Chris 9:45PM (12/03/2006)
Who wants to bet it doesn't last a full three years!? Seriuosly, no one here in the U.S. cares especially if F1 has to head to head with anything. Poker on ESPN will smoke F1 in the ratings because the format is pathetic because you only get to see what F1 wants you to. Speed has no control over the replays and it seems like pulling teeth to get Peter Windsor to talk to anyone of importance on the grid. You see, you may not like NASCAR but you have to respect how they market their sport by MAKING their top drivers do interveiws and be more visable to the casual fan. Thats what gets people interested in the sport, that attachment to a driver and their personality. Most F1 drivers are about as exciting as watching paint dry and you have a better chance of lightning striking you twice in the same day than seeing the former star and the face of F1 Michael Schumacher show any level personality. I like F1, I like NASCAR, in act all motorsports are pretty damn cool in my book so lets have one post thats either about F1 or NASCAR without the constant "NASCAR is a bunch of hillbillies" or "F1 is a bunch of queers" crap and stick to the real issue.
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bathtub gin 11:21PM (12/03/2006)
I'm no huge Nascar fan, and Prius Power and Chris make excellent points. F1 would probably do a lot better here in the States if they actually tried to make the races more accessible to the American racing fans - who are not the total morons that the Euro-snobs try to
make us out to be. Some of us do actually like watching cars turn left and right. Better productions values might help, even though it has been a long time since I watched an F1 telecast, I never thought that was up to American sporting TV standards. Hopefully Fox can help in that regard.
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ZoomZoomin' 2:58AM (12/04/2006)
I never had any serious problem with the SPEED presentations of F1 (yes, the pronunciations do sometimes suck). However, the CBS broadcasts practically made my ears bleed since they had an "F1 for Dummies" level of commentary (and yes, I'm also a Daly hater...he was TERRIBLE). What I wish I could get (but won't) is F1 in HD. Plus, from what I understand, the local director controls the FIA world feed that goes out. So nothing indicates FOX would/could have their own camera equipment present or would get the various individual camera feeds, so you probably shouldn't expect any editing changes.
I find it amazing that there could be many people who would get their feelings hurt when watching F1 because the manufacturers try to be secretive about their tech or this obsession of wanting to be knee deep in the drivers' lives. I'll never quite understand the American obsession with the non-career-related personal lives of public figures beyond the information relevant to their public job. C'mon...
Now the final follow up question is: when will WRC return to SPEED?! I'm trying to remember if they even brodcast the Isle of Mann TT this year. They dropped so much Euro racing after the FOX acquisition of Speedvision. They also (mostly) dropped non-auto racing like offshore boat racing, but I found some of it on at odd (super early) hours during the season.
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J 9:55AM (12/04/2006)
yeah the commentary is pretty bad, real blatent mistakes, like saying the race is in Japan when it is the chinese grand prix... Oh well looks like bit torrent is getting my business again.
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nmd 8:31AM (12/04/2006)
Im a big fan of F1 and I have grown to like the Speed Commentary team... they provide a very good mix of technical and other commentary, and are MILES ahead of the terrible cbs team with Derek Daly... As someone mentioned above, Daly treats the viewer like they dont know what a car is... going in to a 10 minute detour during the race about how the steering wheel works, from the electronics, right down to the basic concept of a steering wheel... what the heck! If someone knows that little about cars, they sure as hell arent going to be watching F1 for more than 2 seconds!
So im actually looking fwd to the non-Daly commentary!
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Mr_Oak 10:38AM (12/04/2006)
Which is completely logical for an american company covering a european sport.
When did Montréal, Rio de Janeiro, Selangor Darul Ehsan - Malaysia, Shanghai, Manama - Bahrain,Indianapolis, Melbourne,Istanbul and Shizuoka become cities in Europe?
It's no more a european sport than soccer/football/futbol is.
Derek Daly is a yokel, other commentators on ABC, NBC and CBS are even worse. What is the point of intervieng most of these F1 cats anyway, now that JV, JPM and MS are gone. Kimi makes for a wonderful interview doesn't he?
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Gooch 8:24AM (12/05/2006)
Many people here have seemed to forget that Daly once was teamed with Varsha on Speedvision in the 1990s...
Daly has been horrible at CBS, but I know that is because they directed him to be that way! In their quest to attract people to the sport, they had Daly dumb down his commentary in order to make people "understand" what they were watching. However, we all know that you can't do that, because the only people who watch motorsport in this country already know about it. The kind of commentary Daly was doing was an insult to our collective intelligence. Daly just went too far in his dumbing down.
As far as Varsha, Hobbs and Matchett are concerned, I rate them second only to John Watson and jeez, I forget the other guy's name... Ben something... but I have a tape of the 2002 Italian GP and not only was the commentary brilliant, the video was extraordinarily beautiful. I already liked Monza, but I had never seen the camera angles they used. It was stunning, and as a matter of fact, I watched that race again last night! With the great intro, ABC actually made it feel like an event to savor. It was the same for the Canadian GP that year too. As I remember, the Canadian GP was on ABC as well.
If Speed/Fox can get these camera angles, I'd be more than happy. And oh yes -- HD. I'm upgrading before the 2007 season starts, and I'd love to see the races in HD.
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Chris 12:20AM (12/05/2006)
I don't need to be "knee deep" in the drivers lives but I want to see personality. How the hell can you have any attachment for something without knowing anything about it? Don't even pull the "well you cheer the guy that wins the most" because the driver in F1 in my opinion has less of an impact than ever. Look at Schumacher in 2005, he was awful because he drove an awful car! Even Rubens Barichello won races at Ferrari and the poor guy rarely saw the leaders this year. It's all about the teams and money spent not the drivers skill so why would you cheer on a Scott Speed when he will never win a race driving for such an awful team? If they let you know more about the drivers you me be more apt to cheer for one of the less successful guy. Hell, people cheer for Michael Waltrip in NASCAR and I would let him drive the pace car but he has a personality for people to see. Also, F1 ony has 22 drivers so it should be easier to talk to more of them.
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