NBC Sports has taken over the broadcast of NASCAR Cup Series races, starting with the inaugural event at Iowa Speedway. Before this, when NASCAR was broadcast on FOX, many fans had complaints about their broadcasting style. From fans calling FOX’s commentating boring to fingers pointed at the production, you would hope that their reaction to NBC would be different. So when FOX Sports concluded its coverage for the 2024 season at the Sonoma Raceway, fans believed that NBC would be better. However, that was not the case.

During NBC’s broadcast of the Chicago Street race, viewers were upset that the broadcast did not show the racing action after the winner crossed the finish line. The broadcast focused too much on showing the winner’s face shield, pit crew celebrations, and other celebratory shots instead of continuing to show other drivers finishing the race. This led to everyone missing out on which positions all the other drivers finished the race and that had fans riled up.

Many fans were unhappy with the coverage and decided to take to Twitter about it. This came along with the backing of Brad Keselowski‘s wife, who made a statement to share her disappointment. In her post, she stated, “Be nice if TV would have shown what happened at the end!” and this was a sentiment that resonated with almost every fan. So when Keselowski made her statement, many fans started to raise their concerns in the comments section, with most of the NASCAR community resonating with the same emotion.

What fans thought of the NBC broadcast of the Chicago NASCAR race

By saying, “‘NBC is so much better’ yea, ok, lol,” this fan is being sarcastic, suggesting that NBC’s coverage is not better than other networks, despite what some people might say. While in the past, fans have praised NBC’s broadcast, recent years have seen a downtrend. The Chicago blunder made most fans miss the ending of the race, which is the most important part of the race. 

“So mad right now! Ruined a top 10,” said one disappointed fan. In the comment, they are expressing anger and frustration because they feel that the poor TV coverage negatively impacted their enjoyment of the race. The fact that the broadcast cut off the race footage to show the shield of the winner made fans unhappy, as the remaining drivers after the winner were not shown crossing the finish line.

This one fan explains the lengths they go to to ensure they don’t miss parts of the race, including recording on multiple channels for extended periods. They mentioned their frustration with the coverage cutting off during an interview with driver Alex Bowman, causing them to miss parts of the broadcast and have to switch recordings to catch up. The comment read, “It’s to the point where we just record programming on Sundays on about three different channels, all day long, for an extended 90 minutes. Our coverage stopped in the middle of when Bowman was speaking, and then I had to go into the next recording to watch the rest of it.”

While most spoke about how the race end was not shown properly, this fan had a problem with the number of commercials shown during the broadcast. Their comment stated, “They can’t resist showing the same commercials 50 times. Someone tell me why they have a prerace show. I would much rather have a post-race show with interviews and a recap of the race.” Ultimately they explained how they would enjoy a postrace show instead of having one before the race as that’s when the interviews and recaps of the race can be shown.

This user is echoing a common sentiment among viewers, agreeing with Paige Keselowski’s original post. They emphasize that their family also felt frustrated by the broadcast focusing on the winner’s face shield instead of showing the action on the track, where cars were still racing for position. Their comment read, “My family was saying the same thing. Who wants to see the winners face shields while there are cars racing to the line for positions?”

With that said, what do you think of NBC’s broadcast of the Chicago race? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.