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FORCE ON TONIGHT'S 'DENNIS
MILLER SHOW'
 John
Force, drag racing's biggest winner as well
as its biggest booster, will make a guest appearance
on "The Dennis Miller Show" tonight (May 25)
along with one of the 320 mile-an-hour Castrol
GTX Ford Mustangs in his Funny Car stable. Force
will tape his segment of the show Tuesday afternoon
at the NBC studios and there will be at least
one DRO operative in the audience. The Dennis
Miller Show airs on CNBC from 9-10 p.m. (ET)
and replays at 12 midnight (ET).
Force sees his appearance as an opportunity to expose his sport to a broader audience. "I just think there are a lot of things I can share with a new audience," he said. "The closeness we have with the fans. The technology. It's a great sport and I look at (this) as a chance to tap into a new market.
"What I love about Dennis Miller is that he
just let's it fly," Force said, "and, if you
don't like it, well, that's tough. I'm really
excited."
Force previously has appeared on The Tonight
Show with Jay Leno and also "guested" this year
on an episode of the Fox network's animated
"King of the Hill" series. Could Force be lining
up a new career if he doesn't win the championship
this year? Hey, if Paris Hilton can have a tv
show. . . . (Jeff Burk
photo) [5-25-2004]
TALE OF THE TAPE
One of the Agent's operatives faxed over a
report from Street & Smith's SportsBusiness
Journal, one of the nation's most prestigious
sports business publications. The study
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entitled
"Spinning Wheels" listed the average ratings
in 2004 for the first five NHRA/ESPN2 race broadcasts
comparing total viewers this year with the same
events from the 2003 schedule and it doesn't
look good.
According to the article the changes are as follows: Winternationals ratings were down 29.3% over 2003, the CSK NHRA Nationals at Phoenix were down 3.6%, the Gatornationals dropped 45.4%, and the O'Reilly Spring Nationals were off 17.0% over the previous year. That calculates out to an average loss of 110,108 households over the four ESPN2 broadcasts. There was no explanation in the article for the significant loss in ratings. The notable exception was the SummitRacing.com Las Vegas event coverage, which nabbed a 42.9% increase, gaining 174,186 U.S. households for that show.
It would appear that not only is NHRA not gaining
new television viewers but, in fact, is actually
losing old fans. What's to be done? [5-25-2004]
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