NBC’s Indy era will have a fast start
INDIANAPOLIS – How important is NBC to the Indianapolis 500? Important enough to push back the start by 25 minutes.
For 54 years, ABC Sports was as connected to Greatest Spectacle in Racing as Jim Nabors’ “(Back Home again in) Indiana,” but Nabors is gone and the network moved on and so it’s goodbye alphabet network, hello peacock.
“NBC feels like they have a huge story to tell,” Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles said Thursday. “They’ve got 110 years of history that they want to tell their viewers of, and they wanted some more time.”
Pre-race programming begins at 8 a.m. Milwaukee time Sunday on NBCSN and then moves to the over-the-air network at 10. The green flag is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Post-race coverage ultimately moves to NBCSN until 5 p.m.
NBC has carried IndyCar broadcasts for years, so the feel of the race itself won’t be anything particular new. Hardcore fans will recognize play-by-play man Leigh Diffey and drivers-turnedanalysts Paul Tracy and Townsend Bell. But the 500 isn’t just another race, as the TV schedule indicates.
Versatile veteran Mike Tirico will serve as host for the nearly four hours of pre-race coverage, with Danica Patrick alongside. Patrick, who in 2005 became the first woman to lead the 500, retired after last year’s race. And Dale Earnhardt Jr., who has embraced his postdriving career as a broadcaster, will help set the scene.
“If you talk about Dale and Danica together, if you asked 10 people in American in random cities to name five racecar drivers, their names would come up pretty quick,” Tirico said. “They are two of the most popular people and have great perspective and knowledge, and I think American fans will love to hear from them about what’s going on.
“From that perspective, our side of it, the production on the editorial side, the commentary side, that group will set us apart from what has been done in the past.”
Count on plenty of NBC family tieins, too, from national anthem singer Kelly Clarkson, who appears on NBC’s “The Voice,” to Patrick’s appearance on “Today” on Saturday to Indy-themed coverage on the Golf Channel, another NBC Universal property.
Including a host, an anchor, a playby-play man, two analysts, contributors Patrick, Earnhardt and Rutledge Wood and six pit reporters the list of voices and faces on the broadcast totals 14.
Earnhardt might be the most freshfaced Doug Boles said. “It played out really well for them.
“Our weather here is so unpredictable. Last year the prediction was we were going to show up on race day and it was going to rain, and we got up the next among them. Having grown up in a NASCAR family and competed at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Memorial Day weekend from 1998-2017, Earnhardt is attending his first Indy 500.
But he has gone to the Olympics and Kentucky Derby for NBC and ventured outside his NASCAR comfort zone as part of the broadcast team for the Rolex 24 at Daytona sports-car race.
“I’m just going to see this stuff and go, ‘that’s cool!’ or ‘I love this,’ Just a genuine reaction,” Earnhardt said of his primary role.
“I want people to go, ‘Man, I’m buying tickets next year. That looked great.’ All the little things going on around the track before the race even starts, I want to go experience that.”
That’s not to say Earnhardt will be winging it. He is a student of racing history in particular, and he is self-conscious about looking bad. NBC provided a massive book of facts and figures on the teams, drivers and race.
Diffey, Bell and Tracy have built the sort of chemistry that takes years. While much of the surrounding cast is new to their broadcasts, they’re not the strangers it might seem.
“For me, I’ve worked with Dale on NASCAR programming before and ‘NASCAR America,’ the studio show,” Diffey said. “I’ve worked with Mike at the Olympics, and I’ve known Danica since she was a teenager racing Formula Fords in the U.K. Rutledge and I go back to our Speed Channel days.
“How do we make it blend? We have here in this room we’ve got an incredible production team and management that lay out the plan on how it’s going to work . ... Everybody has a role, and everybody knows their role.
“NBC does the big events very well, the marquee events, the Super Bowl, Kentucky Derby, Olympics. You name it. Stanley Cup. … For us to have the Indy 500 in that is pretty cool.” morning and it was perfect.”
After a dire forecast Wednesday, the outlook for race day looked much better Thursday. The forecast calls for a 60% chance of rain with scattered thundershowers.