Art Weinstein: NASCAR can’t match the NFL … which isn’t all bad
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers compete in the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway last Saturday night. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
COMMENTARY
One of NASCAR’s biggest races of the year, Sept. 12 at Richmond, will set the field for the sport’s Chase For The Sprint Cup, and the results will get some good play in the national media that night.
That news will be all but forgotten about 12 hours later, when a full slate of games kicks off the National Football League’s regular season.
The NFL is the 800-pound gorilla of the sports world. In fact, one of the biggest reasons NASCAR launched the Chase format in 2004 was to give the sport some much-needed “buzz” to compete with the opening of the NFL and college football seasons, not to mention Major League Baseball’s playoffs.
There’s no shame in being beaten in a popularity contest by the NFL. NASCAR shares that distinction with every other sport in the U.S. The NFL does many things right: It offers an exciting product, many marketable stars, world-class stadiums and competition fundamentals that are easily understood by generations of fans who probably played the sport at some level.
NASCAR will never be more popular than the NFL. NASCAR will never get the headlines the NFL generates.
Yet anyone who watched the onslaught of bad news about the NFL this summer would realize that’s not such a bad thing. Among the biggest NFL headlines in recent weeks:
• Michael Vick signs with Philadelphia Eagles
After serving a prison term for his felony role in a dog-fighting ring that engaged in the drowning, electrocution and bludgeoning of dogs, the former Atlanta Falcons star quarterback, who hasn’t played since 2006, was reinstated by the NFL. His signing with the Eagles prompted an outcry by animal lovers and fans who weren’t animal lovers but were still appalled. The media wasn’t very enthusiastic either, as evidenced by these Aug. 14 headlines in the Philadelphia Daily News: “Hide Your Dogs” and “What Are They Thinking?”
(By the way, in NASCAR’s big controversy that week, fans blasted Kyle Busch because he was upset at being passed by Marcos Ambrose in the Nationwide Series race at Watkins Glen. But the whole Vick incident gives a whole new perspective to the NASCAR rule many fans love to hate, the “lucky dog” free pass.)
• Plaxico Burress accepts plea bargain, gets two-year prison term
The former New York Giants star wide receiver is going to prison after accidentally shooting himself in the thigh with an unlicensed handgun in a Manhattan nightclub last November. After the sentencing, his attorney stated: “If Plaxico Burress were not a high-profile individual …, he could have walked out of the club and he never would have been arrested.”
(In NASCAR news that week, Jimmie and Chandra Johnson announced they were donating $150,000 to primary education in the Charlotte area.)
• Donte Stallworth suspended for year after fatal crash
The Cleveland Browns wide receiver, who recently pleaded guilty to killing a pedestrian while driving drunk March 14, will miss the entire 2009 NFL season. Unfortunately, so will his victim, a 59-year-old crane operator who had just left work and was rushing to catch a bus home when Stallworth – who had spent the night drinking at a Miami Beach nightclub – struck and killed him.
(In NASCAR news a few days after the accident, fans ripped Kyle Busch for having the audacity to park his car on the race track and stalk off to his motorhome after a tough loss in the Nationwide Series race at Bristol.)
• NFL, players union headed for work stoppage in 2011
NFL owners and players haven’t reached a labor agreement, and a strike or lockout looms on the horizon.
(In NASCAR news, the sport’s 2011 Chase will enjoy record TV ratings, attendance if the NFL shuts down that fall.)
These recent NFL scandals make NASCAR’s minor woes this season seem almost trivial. Of course, those NFL problems will be quickly forgotten as soon as the season kicks off in a couple of weeks. The league will go on with its business, oblivious to the controversy. Fans will forgive and forget.
And NASCAR will go on as well, although some fans will still complain about how Kyle Busch’s actions are ruining the sport.
