All is good with NASCAR; Don't believe it, well, they'll tell you

There's a reoccuring theme taking place during the NASCAR Sprint Cup media tour and we're only two days into the four-day event.

All is good. Things aren't as bad as portrayed as media, particularly some TV networks might indicate.

Such similar statements are coming from many people. It's a sign of the impact NASCAR's recent meetings with team owners, drivers and others are having. There's little doubt this is as open as NASCAR has been with its teams in recent years. It's good business sense. There was such a sense of foreboding at times last year by those in the sport. While TV ratings and attendance were down last year, there's no doubt other racing series (and even some sports leagues) would like to have NASCAR's problems.

Of course, one could ask if everything is great, then why is NASCAR set to announce some rule changes later this week to improve the racing?

Consider some of the comments being made by folks this week about the state of the sport:

Car owner Joe Gibbs: "I think going through a tough economy, I'll say this, I am probably as excited about the future of racing as I've ever been. When you go through tough times, what happens lots of times is that everybody kind of gets together. We just finished some exciting meetings. A lot of things are being discussed in there that I think the fans are going to be excited about. The race tracks are all on board. The race teams and the drivers, I can honestly say that everybody is pointed one direction. We want to bounce back.''

Roush Fenway Racing President Geoff Smith: "Here are a couple of positives for you. 6.5 million people watch the race program. Every week. That's 240 million a year watching the race program. When you compare that to what goes on normal television, which is a 13-week  episode, if you have 6.5 million people willing to watch this 36 times ... that's extraordinary (it's actually a total of about 234 million). And our sponsors think that's extraordinary.''

(PUTTING THAT INTO PERSPECTIVE SINCE THERE IS A MENTION OF PRIME TIME PROGRAMMING. Here's a look at viewership for Monday night's TV shows (I just randomly picked a night) _ 1. Two and a Half Men (16.2 million); 2. The Big Bang Theory (15 million); 3. CSI Miami (13.2 million); 4. 24 (10.6 million); 5. How I Met Your Mother (10.1 million).

(Now among the Tuesday night shows that did worse than the 6.5 million average cited by Smith were: Heroes (3.9 million), The Jay Leno Show (4.6 million); One Tree Hill (2.2 million) ... For more on these ratings click here.)

OK, back to a few more comments:

Dodge President and CEO Ralph Gilles: "When we came to the data when I had to review the sport in order to sponsor it, the data was good, the viewrship is incredible, the reach it has is outstanding. That blew me away. NASCAR is pretty darn big.''

Car owner Roger Penske: "We've got to be sure we provide value for money (in terms of sponsorship). I think that's one of the things that as we go through 2010 and beyond and we look at this sport, we've got to make sure we do this together and we build this sport because we need the TV ratings up and we need more people in the stands and I think we need better competition. I think the folks at NASCAR realize that.

But as the talk was about doing things for the betterment of the sport, some comments turned to the media, mainly television. Here's what a couple of folks have said this week:

Former champion Kurt Busch when asked about others listening to radio scanner comments and reporting about them: "When Darrell Waltrip tells the race fans that this would be a good time to go mow your lawn and there's a dip in TV ratings and he says be back in an hour when we get close to the end and TV ratings pick back up, it's not just the driver's voice being heard, it's everybody's voice.''

When asked about the unity being expressed by car owners, drivers and others this week, car owner Jack Roush said this: "One of the things that's out there, and I've not been prompted to make this comment but I will make it anyway because I speak my mind most of the time. If you look at our sport and the way it's reported and the way the communciations box or television box works in relation to the rest of what is going on. There's not a sport activity in the world that's got better critics and more knowledgeable critics than the NASCAR racers and NASCAR does.

"We have not had the level of support from the TV studio box that the other sports have. I would hope that Fox and ESPN and everybody else really thinks about what they're doing. We had more passes last  year than we ever had. We had more passes for the lead than we've ever had. We had more different winners than we've ever had (NOTE: Actually, the 14 different winners last year were more than 2008 but less than there were in 2007) . We had more cars finishing on the lead lap than ever had. The competition was great. It wasn't bad. It wasn't subject to critcism for every move that NASCAR made or every move a team made but sometimes it sounded that way back from the communication box.''

"(International Speedway Corp.), they've done an analysis ... and for all of last year all of their race tracks had not had one complaint from anybody who bought a ticket about something regarding the race not working the way they thought. So there's no complaint from the fans regarding competition. The complaints have come from reporters and from media that has maybe a vested interested. if you look at Darrell Waltrip, you look at all the other ex-drivers, Rusty Wallace, the ex-crew chiefs that are out there, it's not unreasonable to say that they've got some ax to grind over something that frustrated them in their careers on the firing line. We need to reel that back in. That needs to be something that is not carried out front to the fans and to the public.  We need to talk about how many passes we're having. We need to talk about how close the racing is on the final laps, we need to talk about how contentious things are in the garage and the rest of it and not fault the teams for the decisions they make and not fault NASCAR for the government they provide. NASCAR racing is the best run form of motorsports any place in the world. They may be the best form of sport any place in the world.''

George McNeilly, senior director of communications for ESPN, responded to Roush's comments on Tuesday: "We have a very simple to understand mission at ESPN and that's to serve sports fans. One of the ways that we do that, maybe the most pronouced way we do that is that we hire authentic and credible former athletes, former drivers, former crew chiefs, former coaches to analyze what is going on on the field of  play. That's what we do.

When asked about the critical comments that have been directed toward the networks and ESPN (particularly its broadcast of the fall Talladega race) in the last few months by NASCAR and how that might impcat creditibilty issues for broadcasters, McNeilly said: "Ultimately, like the drivers and athletes themselves, we are going to be judged by our performance and Talladega was a strong telecast and we pay our analyst to analyze. We hire the most authentic and credible people to do that. We're the only network with five former Cup champions. These are people who are very knowledgeable about the sport. You folks quoted in their active careers as drivers and crew chiefs and team owners. They were credible then and they're credible now.''

So, what does this all mean? It means a sport that is taking a closer look at itself. It is a sport that might not have as critical voices _ at least publicly. It is a sport that is trying to educate those in it of the benefits. It is a sport that could filter the message to the fans. It is a sport at a cross roads (in a sense) trying to stem the decline in TV ratings and attendance and remind people of what it is. The question is if the fans will buy it? Of course, if the racing meets the expectations of the fans, all this won't mean as much. Until the product meets those expectations, there will be as much noise about the sport as there is at the track from 43 cars heading toward the green flag.

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