The Playoff Narrative Hurts Bristol

Bristol Motor Speedway’s night race is traditionally one of the races that fans look forward to the most.

However, things have changed significantly in recent years for three reasons. One is the Next Gen car and the ongoing challenges that it faces away from intermediate tracks.

Another is scheduling. This used to be a late-August race. Now, it’s in mid-to-late September. That builds to the third reason, which is the fact that it is a playoff race. All three of these factors play a role in how the race is covered.

As you’re likely aware, Saturday’s one (Sept. 21) was the final race of the Round of 16. As a result, there was a lot of coverage regarding the points cutoff. I knew going in that this was going to be a thing, but I don’t think I figured that it was going to affect the broadcast as much as it did, especially late in the race.

That storyline was emphasized early on during Countdown to Green, where pretty much the only people who were interviewed were those in and around the cutoff. Knowing what ended up happening, it is somewhat surprising that Kyle Larson was in that group, but because of his Atlanta Moto Speedway crash, he was only ninth in points entering the race.

The final run to the finish was 163 laps of green-flag racing.

During that time, most of what was covered surrounded drivers such as Ty Gibbs, Martin Truex Jr., Daniel Suarez and Chase Briscoe. Why these drivers? They were the ones on each side of the cutoff. This was even though they weren’t really racing anybody most of that time.

You seemingly either saw coverage of those drivers, or coverage of Larson, who was kicking serious butt. The problem is, this type of coverage doesn’t make for the most enjoyable watch.

I looked at the scoring pylon late in the race and was thinking to myself, “Gee, Bubba Wallace is running down Denny Hamlin and they’re going to have a sweet battle. I’d like to see that, please.”

We did not see that battle. I think Wallace got past Hamlin on the final lap to take a deserved third-place finish. I only noticed when the top-10 finishers were noted on the pylon after the checkered flag. I thought to myself, “Hey, Bubba got him. Wish I could have seen it.”

Why is this problematic? It goes all the way to the fundamentals of putting anything on TV. The goal of the broadcast is to paint a visual of what is going on for the viewership.

For a race at Bristol, you want to have close,…