NASCAR Has Some Free Advice for Fox

Fox is just getting to know the good ol’ boys of NASCAR. Lesson No. 1: Don’t mess with sponsors.

NASCAR has grown accustomed to free advertising. Everything is a billboard--the cars, the drivers’ outfits, their caps--and ESPN, ABC, CBS and other networks that have covered the sport have always willingly put these billboards on the air. And the announcers would often identify cars by sponsor names, free of charge.

Then Fox enters the picture, agreeing to pay an average of $200 million a year for TV rights over the next eight years as part of a new $2.6-billion contract with NASCAR that also includes NBC and Turner, which will cover the second half of the season.

Fox officials reasoned that at that price, they wouldn’t have to give away advertising. So they decided to take a stand, a minor one.

As a warmup to this weekend’s Daytona 500, Fox last weekend televised the Bud Shootout, which is sort of an exhibition all-star race. In a 20-second snippet introducing the field at the start of the three-hour telecast, Fox subtly showed only sponsor logos of those who’d bought commercial time.

Fox thought maybe nobody would notice.

Viewers didn’t. But sponsor-conscious NASCAR did.

All hell broke loose. David Hill, Fox Sports chairman, called it “a tempest in a carburetor.”

Hill said the NASCAR people, in several meetings, “revealed to me the amount of angst that this has caused.”

So Hill, who said he was only trying to help out sponsors who’d bought commercials, backed down.

“We are in a really long-term relationship with NASCAR,” he said on a conference call with reporters. “I felt my enthusiasm to help sponsors out would be better served if we actually put the sponsors’ names on all the cars in the 20-second snippet of graphics in our telecast.

“All we were trying to do was give a little bump to the people who backed us. We didn’t want to offend the NASCAR family. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think it would be picked up so quickly.”

When it comes to free advertising, apparently nothing slips by NASCAR.

IT MAY NOT BE OVER

NASCAR senior vice president Brian France complimented Fox.

“They were great,” he said. “They understood where we were coming from.”

But there could be more problems ahead.

On Thursday, for example, Fox wasn’t able to show sponsor logos for all cars in the Daytona twin 125-mile qualifying races.

For five cars, the decision was understandable: those teams did not have a primary sponsor.

But Fox said it wasn’t able to provide graphics on seven other cars--among them those backed by major companies such as Kodak and Conseco--because it hadn’t received necessary information from the teams in time to put together the graphics. The network isn’t sure the problem will be corrected for all the cars in time for Sunday’s race.

Also, asked if announcers would identify cars during the race by sponsor names, Ed Goren, Fox Sports president, said, “The car identification has traditionally been the car number. That is the first piece of identification and will continue to be. . . . We’re not running a commercial.”

Hasn’t Goren been paying attention to NASCAR telecasts on other networks?

NASCAR NOTES

There were complaints from veteran NASCAR watchers about Fox using a scroll at the top of the screen to set the field during the Bud Shootout.

“They’ll get used to it,” Hill said, “and learn when and how to use it. People didn’t like our score graphic on NFL telecasts at first, either.” . . . Fox’s main announcing team on NASCAR will be Mike Joy, veteran crew chief Larry McReynolds and Darrell Waltrip. . . . Pre-race analyst Jeff Hammond will have a major role as well, as will pre-race show host Chris Myers. . . . Jeanne Zelasko will be a feature reporter. . . . Fox has added Ken Squier, legendary voice of the Daytona 500, as a pre- and post-race essayist for Sunday’s race.

Race-day coverage begins at 7 a.m. on Fox Sports Net with “NASCAR Tech,” followed at 7:30 by an hour and a half of “NASCAR This Morning.” The “NASCAR on Fox” pre-race show on Channel 11 begins at 9 a.m., the race at 10. . . . The producer of the pre-race coverage is Benji Kaze, formerly of ESPN and the son of Irv Kaze, who this week was named best sports talk-show host by the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Assn. for a fifth time.

SHORT WAVES

Although Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson aren’t competing in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, the good news for ESPN and ABC, which are covering the Hope, is that CBS’ coverage of the incredible finish of the Buick Invitational Sunday got an impressive 6.9 national rating. Golf is hot. . . . Something new: The Golf Channel, in covering the Myrtle Beach Open from South Carolina beginning next Thursday, will have microphones on four players who can talk to viewers during play. The Myrtle Beach Open is one of four Canadian Tour events being played on American soil this year and televised by The Golf Channel.

The heavily promoted “ESPY Awards” show on ESPN Monday got a decent 2.0 national cable rating, but the Westminster Dog Show on USA got a 3.3. . . . Adelphia cable subscribers in Arcadia got virtually no audio on the “ESPY” show because of an equipment problem. . . . Recommended viewing: The story of Sirr Parker, a former Locke High student body president and Times summer intern, will be told in the Showtime movie, “They Call Me Sirr,” Sunday at 8 p.m. Parker was a running back at Texas A&M; and is now with the Cincinnati Bengals.

IN CLOSING

Chet Coppock, whose Chicago-based One-on-One radio network show is heard on KMPC (1540), was doing an interview Sunday about the XFL when he began choking so badly he ended up on the floor. A co-worker performed the Heimlich maneuver, dislodging a chicken bone and possibly saving his life. Coppock recovered and later finished the interview.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Feb. 10-11.

SATURDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: XFL, Chicago at Xtreme 4 6.7 12 Golf: Buick Invitational 2 4.0 11 Skiing: World Alpine Championships 4 2.3 6 College basketball: UCLA at DePaul 7 1.8 5 College basketball: Maryland at North Carolina 2 1.6 4 Auto racing: Daytona 500 qualifying 11 1.0 3

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Cable Network Rating Share Pro basketball: NBA All-Star Saturday TNT 2.6 5 Pro basketball: NBA All-Star rookie game TNT 1.7 4 Hockey: Washington at Kings FSN 0.6 1 Horse Racing: Santa Anita Live FSN2 0.5 1 Boxing: Harry Simon vs. Robert Allen SHO 0.3 1 College basketball: California at Oregon FSN 0.3 1 Golf: Senior Ace Group Classic CNBC 0.3 1 Auto racing: Goody’s Dash ACDelco 200 FX 0.2 0 Tennis: Davis Cup, U.S. vs. Switzerland ESPN 0.1 0

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SUNDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro basketball: NBA All-Star game 4 8.7 17 Golf: Buick Invitational 2 5.3 12 Pro football: XFL, Las Vegas at Memphis 13 2.8 5 Auto racing: Bud Shootout 11 2.5 6 Skiing: Lexus Tomba Tour 4 2.4 7 Soccer: Mexican League, UNAM vs. Necaxa 34 2.0 5 Skiing: World Alpine Championships 4 1.9 5 College basketball: Michigan at Indiana 2 1.0 2 College basketball: North Carolina State vs. Duke 7 0.8 2 Hockey: Carolina at Mighty Ducks 9 0.6 1

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Cable Network Rating Share Pro football: Birmingham at New York/New Jersey TNN 2.2 5 Bowling: PBA Empire State Open ESPN 1.1 3 Horse racing: Santa Anita Live FSN2 0.9 2 Horse racing: La Canada Stakes FSN 0.5 1 Tennis: Davis Cup, U.S. vs. Switzerland ESPN 0.3 1 Golf: Senior Ace Group Classic CNBC 0.2 0

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Note: Each rating point represents 53,542 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.