Bernard talks about Vegas, Motegi, live streaming
IndyCar commentary — By Steph Wallcraft on March 26, 2011 8:58 pmDuring his media availability this afternoon in St. Pete, Randy Bernard touched on a number of hot topics relating to the IZOD IndyCar Series. On top of clarifying that the payout of purse money to the top 26 cars would be based on qualifying and not race results, Bernard also talked about the following points:
On the current status of the Vegas challenge: “I’ve seen a lot of names and there’s a lot of interest, so I’m confident we’re going to have some solid names. But again, I’m not going to let somebody run that the committee doesn’t think is a world-class driver because when you look at the tradition of the Indy 500 it’s always been about who brought the best car and the best driver to the Indy 500, and that’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re not going to be able to do it with cars right now, but we can do it with drivers and say come on, we want you.”
On Roger Penske’s comment that he won’t run a challenge car at Vegas if he has drivers in the running for the championship: “There’s plenty of cars we can run, but it would be a big disappointment if we didn’t have Mr. Penske. It’s unfair for me to put the hard sell on Mr. Penske when he says give me until after [the Indy 500 to discuss it]. I’m going to respect his decision, and I’m going to hold off until after the Indy 500. But I can promise you — especially if he wins the Indy 500 — Monday morning, his phone’s going to be ringing. Early. And I can be a pain. I’ll call every day until he changes his number.”
On earthquake damage to Twin Ring Motegi: “I heard it was minimal, but there was some damage. We’re definitely discussing [contingency plans]. But I think that we want to be the utmost respectful to the country and to our partners over there and do what they suggest. If they come to us and ask us to cancel it, we’re going to do whatever we can to keep their relationship. And if they come to us and say they want to [run the race], we will. The ball’s really with our promoters in Japan. What they feel is right we will do. We will [need to decide by a certain date], but it doesn’t have to be until in the summer.”
On live streaming and the issues with INDYCAR Nation Race Control: “I was on the phone with our IT department last night, and I was very upset. I think that we have a problem with our bandwith, which they should have quite honestly — I take the blame — should have known before today. I’m not going to run from the problem. We’ve got to fix it. The live streaming, I wish I had a better answer. And I wish I could blame that on the past regime, but I can’t. And the reason I say that is because PBR had the same negotiation with Versus. I said, ‘we won’t sign something if we can’t do live streaming,’ and they said, ‘then we’ll walk.’ And I ended up signing the deal. So, I knew how passionate they were on that, and there was just no way I was going to change their mind. Comcast has all these contracts with all these other cable affiliates in the U.S. that say that they can’t run [streaming] to protect those cable affiliates buying all their programming. So, it really goes further than even Versus. Versus’s hands are tied just as much as ours because it goes to the big picture of Comcast.”
Tags: Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Randy Bernard, Twin Ring Motegi, Verizon IndyCar Series - Administration, Versus
Excuse me for being a hard headed old fart, but what does a contract with Versus/Comcast have to do with live streaming an event (practice/qualifying) that is not being broadcast by that or any other network?
I agree with Mike H above. I think what many of us are asking for is live streaming for those events (practice, qualifying) that AREN’T broadcast anywhere on TV. I’ve yet to hear how doing that jeopardizes the interests of the broadcasters…
I agree with the previous two. There should be no reason that practice and/or quals can’t be streamed if they are not being broadcast on TV anyhow. In any case, why can’t Versus stream the video also to those that can’t get it on TV? NCAA streams all the games and they are on TV. Also, it doesn’t matter much anyhow because you can’t even get on live T&S because the site is so pathetic it can’t handle 500 people.
The answer is simple: Comcast Is A Pain In The Backside. They think they are going to control all sports broadcasting and the use the cable companies they rival with as an excuse in EVERY DEAL THEY MAKE. They did this with Directv over VERSUS and only after some 5 million people threatened to file suit against them and have all their cable customers drop their service did they give in. The reason live streaming won’t happen is the fact that those networks have the cameras and equipment that need to be used and it costs money to “rent” their time. I think Bernard is aware of that and trying to remedy it by using IZOD IndyCar cameras to broadcast live stream, but that takes their own server with their bandwidth high enough to handle it all.
Terry, the problem isn’t that “those networks have the cameras and equipment”….IMS Productions, owned by H&Co, does all of the video work, and they do that all events to put it up on the big screens at hte track during all sessions anyway. Either ABC or Versus hires the broadcast on-air talent, who in fact must be approved by H&Co, and the network direction crew simply calls the shots on which IMS Production camera feed is being shown on the network feed. The gist of the argument is that production of video streams for practice and quals would cost either VS or ABC absolutely nothing. If the network with rights to that particular weekend is not going to air those sessions in any case, how that could possibly detract from ratings for the race broadcast is a mystery to us all.
Sorry about typos above, and to clarify…a Hulman-controlled entity was always bearing the costs of video production during practice and qualifications, and also bore the costs to upload and distribute the streaming content. Neither ABC nor Versus “touched” that in any way, shape or form.
Wouldn’t live streaming of practices be, in effect, free advertising for Versus? Somebody might watch the practice online and say “Cool! I have to tune into Versus tomorrow for the race!”
Streaming practice would be a win-win-win for Versus, Indycar and the fans. So why not do it?!?!?!
My response to RB’s comments would be to tell Comcast to charge for a stream and distribute the revenue to the cable affiliates. If they wouldn’t take that over not receiving revenue at all from people finding a bootleg stream online, then they’re just not accepting reality.