Columnist Ron Kantowski: NASCAR next organization to join made-for-TV sports

Thursday, Jan. 22, 2004 | 9:31 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

If you're among the grease monkeys and investment bankers who are upset with NASCAR for adopting an NFL-style playoff this week to determine its champion, you can blame it on The Peacock. And Fox, FX and TNT.

When NASCAR signed a $2.4 billion deal with its television partners in 2001, it more or less became a democracy. It's no different than when one of the oil companies ponies up a campaign contribution.

I think it was A.J. Foyt who said the reason NASCAR became so successful is that series founder Big Bill France used to hold his board meetings in a phone booth. Those days have gone the way of the phone booth. In today's cell phone world, before a key decision can be made, there must first be a conference call with the suits from the networks and Nextel, the new title sponsor of NASCAR's premier division.

NASCAR's TV ratings plummeted last fall, which many in the sport attributed to Matt Kenseth, a young driver from Wisconsin, of all places, having taken advantage of NASCAR's antiquated point scheme to clinch the championship by Flag Day, or thereabouts. Under the new format, only the top 10 and possibly a couple of "wild cars" after the first 26 races will be eligible to run for the title during the final 10, providing NASCAR with an NFL-style playoff system.

It's not a bad business model, especially when you're going bumper to bumper with the NFL for ratings in September and October. But while it's bound to create additional interest in stock car racing, will that interest translate to more TV viewers over the long haul?

My take is that you could put Pam Anderson in her birthday suit, strap her onto Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car as a hood ornament, and NFL fans still wouldn't turn away on Sunday afternoon.

(Although that might be a good reason to figure out how to use picture-in-picture.)

Most hardcore fans and many hard-headed drivers are opposed to the changes. But Las Vegas Motor Speedway general manager Chris Powell was in the middle of the racing groove when he said that any fan who doesn't have a problem with the yellow flag should embrace the new format, because it essentially will have the same effect. And that, of course, is to make the races more exciting.

Most fans accept bunching the field under caution as part and parcel of the sport. But that's like changing the score of a baseball game from 6-1 to 2-1 during the seventh-inning stretch. Even the Cubs would have a shot playing by those rules.

If you don't believe the technology exists to set the field for a race restart exactly as it was before somebody threw the empty bag of pork rinds onto the track, then you're elevator doesn't go all the way to luxury suite level. They used to do it at the Indy 500 in the 1970s, and that was when they used humans to count laps.

While some NASCAR fans would have you believe that changing the points system is the worst legislation since "no shirt, no shoes, no service," I have always considered auto racing more of a series of distinct events loosely bound into a season-long championship. For instance, I can recite the name of every Indy 500 winner from 1957 (the year I was born). And that includes Buddy Lazier, who won in 1996.

But don't ask me who won that year's Indy-car championship. Or any other year. I couldn't tell you.

In that way, auto racing, at least to the casual fan, is a lot like golf, only the carts are a lot louder.

Golf has its four major championships and a bunch of Buick Opens in between. Sound familiar? In NASCAR, there's Daytona and the Brickyard and the Coke 600 at Charlotte and maybe the Southern 500, stock car racing's equivalent of the PGA Championship. And a lot of Quad Cities Opens at places such as Richmond and Pocono.

The biggest difference is that golf doesn't have an official season-long championship.

And yet, Tiger Woods still became a star.

He did it without the benefit of a late yellow, a drafting partner, the promoter's option, raising his rear spoiler, using something called the "Lucky Dog" rule to get his lap back and a bevy of other contrived nuances that make NASCAR more exciting for television.

You can add the motorized playoffs to the list.