Getty NASCAR President Steve Phelps talks to the media.
NASCAR President Steve Phelps has been in the headlines a lot recently with the announcement of the much-anticipated media rights deal with the networks that is set to begin in the 2025 season. In an interview, the top exec provided some background on those negotiations while painting an overall bigger picture of the sport and what it’s been like for him in his five years since he took the job.
During that conversation, the 60-year-old made one interesting remark that revealed just how much influence the networks have when it comes to scheduling races, including one controversial decision by Fox that upset plenty of fans and drivers.
My one-on-one interview with NASCAR president Steve Phelps where we discuss the high and lows of the 2023 season, what Ryan Blaney brings as the Cup champion, why he wishes NASCAR had more Denny Hamlins, and why this year has been so stressful for him.
“We were very intentional about what needed to happen in order to take us from here to here,” Phelps told The Athletic. “And it wasn’t just steadying the ratings, it was schedule variation, it was making sure our partners are spending ad money with our media partners.
“It was just a series of things like working with Speedway Motorsports and having them understand the importance of, ‘Hey, Fox really wants to do Bristol dirt on Easter.’ I can assure you that wasn’t their first choice. It was Fox’s first choice, so it was our first choice, but we needed to make sure that Marcus (Smith, Speedway Motorsports’ CEO) and his team were on board with that.
“And listen, the initial discussions, Steve O’Donnell (NASCAR COO) didn’t leave that conference room with a, ‘That sounds great!’ But Speedway Motorsports is a good partner. They understand the importance of what needs to happen. They’re all building blocks, and we have to keep doing that.”
Bristol Dirt Race on Easter Was Unsurprisingly Controversial
The Bristol Dirt Race was contentious from the very beginning. Many fans weren’t happy that one of the most entertaining tracks on the schedule was going to be covered with dirt. Drivers, like Kyle Larson, also didn’t hesitate to voice their frustration with the decision.
“In my opinion, if we’re not going to take the windshields out, we might as well never put dirt on Bristol again, which I’m all for not putting dirt on Bristol, whether we have windshields or not,” Larson said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio in April 2022. “I think the racing at Bristol is amazing just as normal.”
TUNE IN ALERT: An outspoken Kyle Larson questions #NASCAR’s decision to use windshields in the #FoodCityDirtRace at @BMSupdates.
Hear his comments in FULL tonight at 8:30 PM ET on #DialedIn w/ @ClaireBLang.
That was opposition just to the dirt. When it was announced that the 2022 edition was going to take place on Easter Sunday, unsurprisingly it produced another uproar, including from the drivers.
“Not a big fan of racing on Easter,” Joey Logano said before the April 17 race. “I feel like that’s a very special day, a day that’s equally as big as Christmas, if not bigger, so I’m not crazy about it.
“I also understand where it makes a lot of sense for a sport to do it. But it’s different than other sports. When other sports compete on holidays, it’s a couple teams here and a couple teams there. This is 40 teams.”
Fans Already Frustrated With Fox’s Coverage
Fox came up with the idea for an Easter Sunday race, according to Phelps. That is just another thing fans can add to their list of frustrations with the network that broadcasts the first half of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule and will continue to do so in the new contract.
Complaints in 2023 were plentiful and started at the Daytona 500, which was jokingly called the Commercial 500 by some, with so many advertisements early in the race, interrupting in-race action.
Yes, this happened yesterday during @nascar Cup Series practice and qualifying at @MartinsvilleSwy. Who knew @jjyeley1 was so accomplished?
Inexplicable graphic errors happened all too frequently, including one of the most baffling that identified JJ Yeley as the 2009 Formula 1 World Champion during practice before the spring race at Martinsville.
But the bigger and most often expressed concern was the network’s camera people and their repeated inability to follow and show the on-track action described by the announcers.
Denny Hamlin detailed Fox’s lackluster production on the April 17 episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast.
“One thing I saw at (Bristol) dirt last week or when I watched it back, the announcers would be talking about some side-by-side battle, and the camera wasn’t on it,” Hamlin said. “So you didn’t know — what are they talking about? Let me see this battle.
“I did notice, too, as soon as some action would start to heat up on a side-by-side battle, they’d cut to like 12th place. You see the second-place guy working over the first-place guy like right on his ass and about to make a move and they cut to like side-by-side for 12th. It’s like, s***, let’s keep it in the battle that’s about to dictate who’s going to be leading this race. Certainly I think from a production standpoint, we could make some improvements.”
Fans would agree on better decisions from the network on both the production and the schedule.