The SPEED channel.. Why they will not show boat racing
 

A long while ago I heard that the APBA had a misunderstanding with the SPEED channel . To with this may be the reason that speed has no APBA racing on it. SpEED has cooking shows game shows quiz shows, shows with dancing and singing and a whole bunch of guys talking ,but not really much boat racing to speak of, The IHBA can be seen from time to time with the drag boats but what happen to all the other forms of boat racing… Can anyone shed some light on this situation… and also if this is so how can it be resolved… I like the cooking shows but I can watch those on the food network. I want to see my friends racing and running their boats on the SPEED channel.. I hope I am not rambling… But what is the real deal?

Cooking dancing and singing on SPEED channel??? :rolleyes: They're desperate. :lolhit:

it's almost like MTV (the M stands for Music) showing everything BUT music.

They're too busy informing you of the color of underwear of each NASCAR driver.

Nobody cares. Too many organizations, too many different classes.

Speed Channel, formerly Speedvision did have a fair amount of boat racing when they were an independent channel 10 years ago.
Wednesday nights were called, "Wings and Water Wednesday". In addition to airplane racing (the Wings part)They covered offshore, Champ, F1, and drags. They also had boat racing on weekends.
They were purchased by Fox, who sniffs Nascar like cocaine, and that's why you get nothing but Nascar 24/7, and Nascar trivia.
Boat racing is a harder sell to sponsors and TV. Everyone has a car, not everyone has a boat, so it is easier sell auto racing and auto racing specialty parts.
When I was racing (drags/ODBA/MSDBA/KDBA) we had to pay Outdoor Channel to cover our National Championships. Someone has to pay for the production costs. Then you hope to sign up enough sponsors and advertisers to make a little money or at least break even.
Is boat racing exciting. Yes. To me, much more so than auto racing, because you are racing on an unstable, unpredictable surface, and I just like the technology better. Not a knock on car racing. I just like boats more, as a lot other people on this site do.
The Water Channel was supposed to pick up a lot of boat racing. Haven't heard much about that lately. I don't know if they are even still on the air.
Ah, the good old days.................
Regards,
Steve

You can't imagine how many broken promises, cancelled races and competing organizations have infected boat racing's relationship with the networks. In the beginning( 1975-86) there was ABC and ESPN. ABC got no bang for their buck and a few years later ESPN made the decision to limit motor racing to "the deuce" (ESPN 2) because there is a school of thought among many sports "journalists" that racers aren't "athletes" (They apparently don't relate to anybody who is not a Title IX, inner city, steroid abuser...or an out of shape golfer) . This led to an ESPN executive breaking away and forming the original Speedvision, which was designed to showcase the cast off races. Meanwhile, even "the deuce" had enough of Offshore's shenanigans, lies, exaggerated fan base, and lack of racing, so they limited boat racing to only Unlimited Hydro and Champ Boat events (both Budweiser sponsored) which had a much more viewer friendly, fact based, and competitive racing model with a cult like fan base. However, even those events never garnered enough ratings to put them over the top and in line with Motorcross, or NHRA. ( My position has always been that until Champ Boat clicks with the American consciousness, Offshore hasn't got a chance....... Who really wants to see an ever diminishing handful of big egos with expensive toys that look slow on TV due to their size, splashing around in a maze of idiotic classes?).

Meanwhile back at the ranch...err Marina...... Offshore (OPT and APBA)journeyed through Speedvision, which was reincarnated as "Speed" for a few seasons only to fall off the network for failing to maintain the budget needed to put together a packaged series. At the same time other competing sanctioning bodies (US Offshore, etc) were "pooping in public" on MSG, Prime Network, and the like, all with limited ratings, confusing classes, more broken promises and an ever diminishing check book balance ( Sponsor after sponsor came, saw, and ran away screaming). The production values were all over the map due to low budget, backyard producers like Gateway and others coming in and creating "bargain priced" programming that catered to the racers more than the viewer.

Finally, during the APBA LLC era the outlets stepped down another notch onto TNN and TNT while SBI explored "The Storm Door and Washing Machine channel" and the like. Later the LLC went kaput, and SBI came up with the unique approach of having camera crews at each event and never actually putting anything on the tube (a really economical way of going forward) while labeling everything but the porta pottis with CBS stickers. This satisfied the racers' need to be interviewed on camera at virtually no cost.....you gotta love it!

So to sum it all up...... millions of dollars have been spent putting bad races in front of channel surfers...broken promises and bounced checks have been left all over the TV world...(which is not that big, but has a memory like an elephant)......and the sport itself still struggles to put on anything remotely resembling a true, watchable program (UIM excepted).

The damage can be repaired of course, with a Fortune 500 sponsor based budget, but not before the "Offshore Flying Circus" is vastly simplified, has true fleet growth, and makes sense to John Q Public....but that, my friend, is a challenge that few of today's racers can accept.

T2x............... (formerly appearing on NNRT, ESPN, ESPN2, PRIME, MSG, Speedvision, Speed, TNN, TNT....and ABC (once))... :D

I miss it!!!:mad:

Because they must have a quoata to show 20 hours of NASCAR each day.

I was ****ing pissed when they cut off the podium ceremony of the Monaco Grand Prix to show ****ing NASCAR Raceday. I mean **** - I am not a huge Mark Webber fan but c'mon - I still wanted to hear what he had to say about winning the most celebrated race in the world.

Sadly, that about sums it up.