Noting that there are "not many times you can transform a sport," new NHRA President Peter Clifford yesterday signaled a new era for drag racing starting in '16 as Fox Sports takes over media rights. Clifford, speaking during a featured one-on-one session at the '15 Daytona Rising/NASCAR Motorsports Marketing Forum, went through a laundry list of changes the sport is going through, from taking production in house to adding full-time reporters in L.A. and Indianapolis to increasing the amount of content around the sport. Clifford, who took over the NHRA midway through last year, said Fox will show 450 hours of programming in '16, up from 120 in '15 from ESPN, which exited the sport after a 15-year relationship. Clifford: "We've been growing the last four years and we want to have some significant growth going forward, but there were some things we needed to do to grow the sport; first and foremost was to improve television. ... (ESPN) was absolutely great for the sport -- they were the place that you had to be initially. But now, Fox and NBC -- they’re the new rulers of motorsports, and we knew it was really important for us to get to Fox and be a part of it." Seventeen of the series' Sunday races next season will air live, which roughly triples the amount shown live on ESPN in '15, and Clifford said the only reason that all races won’t be shown live is "we didn't want to be directly (up against) NASCAR, so the six events that aren't live will have NASCAR lead-ins."
NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Clifford said that despite industry rumblings, the series is not for sale. He admitted the series did look at such an option about a year ago, but added, "What we were looking for was a media partner, because we thought we couldn't do it on our own. But we quickly realized and put together a plan where we can do it on our own -- our media partner is Fox and they're going to help us going forward. We don't need an outside person to help us, so we shelved that. That’s not going to happen. We're confident, we've got a plan in place, we've got the initiatives to grow the sport, so that's not in the works at all."
