NASCAR Senior VP/Media & Productions Brian Herbst discussed the monumental tasks of returning to racing amid the pandemic at the Media Innovators virtual event presented by Leaders and SBJ. Herbst said during the shutdown, the organization “spoke a ton with Fox ... probably every other day from March 12 ... through Darlington.” To make up for lost races, NASCAR ran a lot of events in a short period of time, including doubleheaders. Herbst: “There were times (especially when there was bad weather) that we would speak three or four times a day. … And we got to know each other a lot better in 2020.” Regarding safety protocols, Herbst said NASCAR and Fox “had to scale down the footprint of the production group.” He said the typical team of 150 people producing events at any given location had to be scaled down to 50. Herbst on how the pandemic has possibly altered production game plans moving forward: “Remote production work has just been accelerated with the pandemic. And what was previously probably taboo, to not have a certain amount of personnel on site, probably is going to come under a little bit more scrutiny in 2021 and beyond.”
Below are more highlights from the conversation with Herbst, who is a member of this year's SBJ “Forty Under 40” class:
*On the changing media landscape: “What moves that we’ve made in terms of shaking out the schedule in 2021, putting new road courses, new formats, new venues, new markets on the schedule, we’ll do our best to push a lot of those events to broadcast because those are storyline races that we think will drive interest, give our partners the ability to sell at higher rates from an ad revenue perspective.”
*On NASCAR’s broadcast deal with NBC Sports Group that expires in '24: “Historically how we’ve done these deals is it’s usually a year, year and a half before the expiration of the term that we’d start either renewal discussions or third party discussions with non-incumbents. … So if history is a guide, I would imagine it would be somewhere along that time table.”
*On Ray Evernham and Tony Stewart launching Superstar Racing Experience: “I would say that it’s a testament to a healthy category and a healthy business that you have new entrants into that category.”
*On the ’21 schedule shakeup with new tracks: “There was a desire from our network partners, our industry, our fans more acutely, to shake things up.”
*On how all of the new innovations and ideas have coalesced this year: “Our innovation was kind of on full display as a sport and certainly kind of in lock step on a way to grow the sport and our fanbase in the future.”
