Jeff Gluck: Team owners don't belong in NASCAR broadcast booth
Rusty Wallace works as a broadcaster for ESPN's coverage of the NASCAR Nationwide Series. // Grant Halverson, Getty Images for NASCAR
COMMENTARY
Television is the most powerful medium out there, even better than the Internet when it comes to delivering your message to a mass audience.
When you watch a NASCAR broadcast, the information you receive from the play-by-play announcers and analysts enters your brain and is often accepted as fact.
But most viewers incorrectly assume the information is being presented to them in an unbiased manner. On NASCAR broadcasts, that’s not necessarily true.
ESPN’s Rusty Wallace is the team owner of Rusty Wallace Racing and calls races where his own cars – and own son – participate. The network’s Brad Daugherty is co-owner of JTG/Daughtery Racing and takes part in broadcasts featuring Marcos Ambrose. Analyst Ray Evernham still retains a share of the team once known as Gillett Evernham Motorsports.
The role of an analyst is to provide insight into the topic they cover, which Wallace, Daugherty and Evernham do very well. But another part of that role should be – or used to be – to break down events in an unbiased manner.
By their very nature, journalists are supposed to be unbiased. You can’t stop people from feeling certain ways one way or the other – everyone is human – but part of the job is being as impartial as possible.
Wallace, Daugherty and Evernham cannot do this. No matter how hard they try – and there’s no doubt they put a tremendous amount of effort into their jobs – they cannot be unbiased toward the events unfolding in front of their eyes because they have a personal stake in the happenings.
If Steve Wallace is involved in a wreck, father and team owner Rusty Wallace up in the booth shouldn’t be in position to comment on what just occurred.
Yet time and again, Rusty’s very presence on the broadcast team has made for uncomfortable moments. The former Cup champion is forced to choose either to comment on his car’s misfortune or say nothing while his colleagues awkwardly reference what just happened.
It’s a lose-lose situation for Wallace and the viewers: If he says something about his car, it won’t come across as unbiased commentary no matter how truthful it may be; if he doesn’t say anything at all, his silence still seems to speak volumes.
When Steve Wallace bumped Kyle Busch at a Richmond Nationwide Series race, then had an altercation with Busch on pit road, commentator Marty Reid said, “You may have to get your wallet out, Dad. There may be a fine.”
“I’m staying out of this one,” Wallace replied quickly.
But that begs the question: What are analysts with personal and financial interests doing analyzing the very events their teams enter?
Networks should try harder to hire broadcasters who fans know are presenting the truth as best they know it.
It’s not just ESPN, either. Fox’s Darrell Waltrip has close ties to Toyota, which mean many fans’ perceive that he praises Toyota drivers more than others.
That may not be fair to Waltrip – just like it’s not fair to Wallace – but they are in a position to be criticized based on their personal interests.
Rich Feinberg, ESPN’s Vice President for Motorsports, says the network doesn’t try to cover up their analysts’ interests – in fact, it’s quite the opposite.
“We’re not trying to hide that Rusty is an owner,” Feinberg says. “When you hear the guys talk with him about it costing him money, it’s quite the opposite. We’re addressing it right up front.
“As long as we are up front with our viewers right from the beginning about their other interests…and in if in our opinion, their commentary doesn’t have that bias, then we’re OK.”
Feinberg says Wallace and Daugherty’s presence on the broadcast benefits viewers to the point that it outweighs these issues, which he calls “interests outside of their journalistic interests.”
The awkwardness felt by both viewers and those on the ESPN team is the collision of those separate interests, which don’t belong together at all.
“Have there been times in four years where there’s been an uncomfortable moment? If I’m being honest, I’d say yes,” Feinberg says. “We talk about those and try to move on. But the key is not to hide it.”
This is the sport where two of the most famous TV moments of all time featured broadcasters rooting on their relatives to Daytona 500 victories: Ned Jarrett calling son Dale across the finish line, and Waltrip crying as his brother Michael took the checkered flag.
So perhaps NASCAR is filled with so many family ties and sponsor relationships that conflict is unavoidable.
But putting broadcasters in the booth who have known conflicts leaves much to be desired for any network, whose on-air talent should still be viewed as journalists and strive to be unbiased.
No matter how much Wallace and Co. try their best to present a fair broadcast, there is no real solution to this issue until none of the analysts have a financial stake in what is being covered.
ESPN, though, disagrees.
“The audience is the ultimate judge,” Feinberg says. “The audience judges our work, our ethics and our credibility on a daily basis by whether they choose to watch us or not. That’s who we do this for.”
