Unsolicited advice for VERSUS

If you haven't been over to Furious Wedge lately, be sure to venture over and offer your thoughts on SandWedge's ideas for VERSUS IndyCar telecasts. He's been noting how VERSUS has already done a great job promoting the IndyCar series on their network (they're working "April 5th" into everything but the infomercials) but felt like now would be a good time to offer suggestions on what happens when the actual racing season starts on that well-promoted day.

I'm not going to go into his ideas here but I would like to add my own simple suggestion, something I mentioned when Curt and Kevin were gracious enough to have "Blogger Night" on their show a while back. Put simply, here's the challenge for VERSUS (and ESPN for their few broadcasts as well):

Show more drivers not in the Top 5 during the race.

One of the reasons Danica Patrick continues to grab sponsors left and right is that she knows no matter where she is on the track we're going to see her during a race. And there's nothing wrong with that, because Danica has zillions of fans who would feel slighted if she wasn't mentioned at least a dozen times during the broadcast. I know, I live with one of them.

Still, Danica doesn't have ALL of the fans, and those who cheer for someone other than the driver of the #7 often get to see little of their favorite driver during a race. This means ultimately we'll see even less of those drivers since no one's going to pay to be on the sidepods of someone who can't meet the fiscal requirement of getting air time for their sponsor.

Please understand that as a solution I'm not talking about the filler that is field run downs, but rather actual racing. Each race is at least two hours, roughly an hour of which involves the leaders lock-stepping their way to fuel conservation for later in the race. (As our buddy pressdog has said "I tell you what, nobody can save fuels like them guys in IndyCar...Have you seen them drive in fuel position 3? I tell ya, once you've seen that, you'll be hooked for life!") Meanwhile elsewhere on the track there are a dozen other drivers actually fighting for position, so there's no reason why the broadcast crew shouldn't pan the cameras around and look for an actual contest for position.

Pardon me if I'm being to presumptuous, but I think I speak for all racing fans when I say it's more interesting to watch Ed Carpenter and Hideki Mutoh battle for 8th then watch Scott Dixon's two-second lead get extended to 2.1 seconds.

I say this because the one race I attended in person last year was at Indianapolis, the first half of which I found myself watching two drivers (EJ Viso and Jeff Simmons) each move up the pylon about a dozen spots. I'm guessing viewers at home probably saw maybe 10 seconds of either one during the five-hour broadcast. Too bad, because you missed some fine driving.

The point isn't that we need to see more of any particular driver, it's that we need to see more of ALL drivers. I realize this means the broadcasters will actually have to learn how to pronounce names like "Moraes" and "Junqueria" but if it means more teams might be able to convince sponsors to plunge their advertising budget into the IRL then it's imperative this gets done. This really is a win-win for the broadcaster, because those teams that advertise on those cars might even make commercial buys for the races.

Not to single any particular guy out but just as an example let's take Oriol Servia. I don't how many times last season I noticed on the positional "crawl" graphic that Oriol Servia was once again moving through the field. The problem is I and other viewers didn't see all that much of Servia's driving on the broadcasts, which might be a large reason why he doesn't have a contract for this year. Again - how can we expect any company to shell out millions of dollars in sponsorship when that company's logo or name won't be covered for more than a few seconds during any given race?

The answer, of course, is we can't, not unless Target ends up sponsoring every car in the series. Seriously, read this IRL sponsor exposure report at The Score and note how sponsors of drivers not named Dixon, Wheldon or Danica fared. It's a cringe-inducing indictment of the coverage last year to say the least.

The bottom line is that if you only show five or six cars then only those five or six cars will have sponsors willing to pay. That's not a sustainable business model for any series, so on behalf of all people who enjoy watching more than six cars racing I'd humbly request to the folks with the television contracts, if you could, in 2009 and beyond, please fix this.