conference call

TRANSCRIPT – 2021 NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL

June 15, 2021 By admin Leave a Comment

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Rick Allen

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Jeff Burton

Steve Letarte

Sam Flood

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us for the NBC Sports NASCAR media conference call as NBC Sports takes over the remainder of the 2021 NASCAR season beginning this weekend with the series return to Nashville.

In just a moment we’ll be joined by our lead NASCAR team of Rick Allen, Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Steve Letarte, as well as by NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood.

Let’s begin our call with opening remarks from Sam Flood.

SAM FLOOD: Thank you all for joining us today. We’re really excited to get this season started. It just feels like in the last month, the world is coming back to the way it needs to be with fans in the stands and the energy of live sporting events with people at the venues.

Having been to the Kentucky Derby and the Indy 500 for our shows over the last month or so, it really felt right. It felt like life was back to the way we want it to be, and for this NASCAR and NBC Sports team to be able to engage with the crowd at the racetrack, to be at the track, to be at the place these four guys and the rest of the team love more than anything else in the world is being at the racetrack, and we saw last year how special it was when they got back to the track for the last five or six races of the season and the engagement, being around the sights, the sounds, the smells, the energy of a NASCAR race. It made it special, and it’s even more special and more important now that the fans are back in the stands. It just turns a race into an event, and we love events, and no one makes big events bigger than NBC Sports and the team we have here.

This very first opening weekend in Nashville, to think that Brad Paisley and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are going to be hosting this pre-race show from an amazing venue back where it’s all going on in Nashville, a place that should have racing, and it’s finally back where it belongs in Nashville.

This group is ready to roll. The team on pit road, can’t wait to get going, pre-race show, across the board. Big time, big energy, big event, leaning into Nashville, leaning into the start of our half of the season.

Our hats go off to our friends at FOX; what a great job they did getting the first half of the season going. They had a spectacular season. The numbers looked very good. The ratings were where we like to see them heading in a positive upward direction. So we’re ready to take that mantle, carry it to the finish line, finish off this regular season and lead into the playoffs.

We can’t wait to get going. Rick, I’ll pass it off to you. Have some fun.

RICK ALLEN: Thanks, Sam. To echo what Sam was saying, a capacity crowd expected at Nashville Superspeedway. We feed off that, the crowd, the electricity, just the excitement that these events bring, and like he said, FOX I think has done a wonderful job. They’ve touted it as the best season ever.

We’re picking off where one driver has incredible momentum, Kyle Larson, what a story he has to tell from being suspended a year ago to now being the favorite for a championship. He’s really hot right now.

We’re excited to pick this up, excited about coming back to Nashville. It’s been 37 years since the Cup Series has raced there. The likes of Petty and Pearson and Waltrip were the big names when the Cup Series was there. Now you’ve got Larson and Hamlin and Harvick and Busch and all these other superstar names that want to make a name for themselves in Nashville, in Music City USA.

We’re really fired up to get going. As a team we have been chatting and texting and talking every single race throughout the entire season. We have a great line of communication that we’re able to just enjoy these races all throughout the first 16 races, and now we get to enjoy them shoulder to shoulder, side by side, in the booth and call and do what we love to do, and that’s watching NASCAR racing and enjoying it with the fans.

It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m going to hand off now to Jeff Burton, the Mayor.

JEFF BURTON: Hey, everybody. I think the word “excitement” may be overused today, but that’s okay because that’s how we all feel, not only to get back to the racetrack but to do it with friends, we all get along just unbelievably well, have a great time doing this together. That energy that comes from the fans that Sam and Rick just talked about, that’s real.

Going to races where we didn’t have fans, oh, my gosh, I so appreciate it now more than ever, that energy, that excitement, that enthusiasm they bring.

This town is ready for it. I was there a month ago or so doing a shoot with Mario Andretti, and the people in that town are fired up about this race, and that makes me fired up even more.

On track I’ve got to tell you, I think the drivers and the teams, they have been bringing it. It has been a really good year, a lot of on-track excitement. Clearly Kyle Larson has taken charge at this point in the year, but we know that that doesn’t always just go like that. Who can knock him off? Who can go and take that away from him? That’s going to be fun to watch.

It’s been a great year. I don’t see any reason why that’s not going to continue.

Our first race is a track that many of these drivers haven’t run on. Some drivers have in the Xfinity Series and in trucks. A lot of unknowns going into this weekend, and really in our first half of our year where we’ve got 10 races before the playoffs, there’s a lot of interesting racetracks coming up, and that uncertainty only adds to the pressure of the playoffs. That makes our broadcasts that much more fun, makes it more difficult on the teams, and as race fans and as sports fans, we all know the more difficult it is on the teams, the more fun it is to watch.

Can’t wait to get there this weekend, have a great time, feel that energy from the fans, and Jr., I’m going to turn it over to you.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I’m looking forward to getting back on the road and being back at a racetrack. When you go for a good period of time without being at a track and you come back and drive in and you hear cars running and carrying on, it feels like home, and you kind of remember — you have all these great memories that come rushing back, and you just get excited about what you’re going to see when the green flag drops.

It’s something that I need in my life, and lucky for me, I get to work with a great group of people that love to talk about racing and enjoy the same thing for the same reasons.

Yeah, it’s just a lot of fun to be able to go to the track and be a part of this broadcast. We’ve got an amazing season that’s starting to unfold. It’s kind of a good challenge and a unique challenge to pick the season up when we do. A lot of the playoff conversations are going to start happening — who can maintain not only the momentum that they have and the teams that are winning, but also where that cutoff is and who might make or miss the playoffs? All that stuff starts to really become part of the conversation. A lot of storylines start to really develop.

It’s a really fun part of the year as we close in on the playoffs. The playoffs have really brought a lot of good excitement and drama. They’ve delivered every year, and from a fan’s perspective, I guess I’m a broadcaster but I’m really just a fan to be honest with you. From a fan’s perspective, it’s been a great run here for the last several years, and we’ve got a lot of great momentum in the sport and a lot of energy in the sport. I’m excited to see how the season turns out.

Like Jeff said, we have teams that are really dominant right now, but I’ve seen this before. We see it time and time again, where there’s sort of an organization who comes out of the box strong and they have a great regular season, but then there’s someone that jumps out — comes out of nowhere and surprises — there’s a turning of the tide a little bit when the playoffs happen, and there’s a lot of reasons for that, and it’s a little bit different each year.

Some of these teams are going to change their performance a little bit and improve and bring the fight to HMS. I don’t think this is going to be an easy cakewalk for them in terms of crowning a champion in that organization like they did last year with Chase Elliott.

It’s absolutely theirs to lose, but I believe that they’re going to have plenty of competition when it comes down to it.

I’m going to pass it on to my favorite crew chief and broadcasting buddy, Steve Letarte.

STEVE LETARTE: Appreciate it, Jr. It’s been an amazing six months. I was able to be a part of the Rolex broadcast and I was able to go to Indianapolis and see my first ever Indy 500 in person, and those were both breathtaking events. There’s nothing like kind of returning home to your NASCAR family.

As you guys the three boothmates, have mentioned, we communicate and talk about racing all the time, but there’s nothing like standing above a full grandstand full of people covering the races live. I’m looking forward to that.

I would lie if I wasn’t — I really look forward to walking in the Xfinity garage on Friday and the Cup garage on Saturday. That’s a part that was taken from us through this crazy pandemic, and it’s the part of my job that I probably love the most. I appreciate the competitors’ commitment to Zooms, but I can’t wait to lean on a set of tires and see the competitors face to face and discuss their challenges, their opportunities and their approach to the weekend and then convey those storylines to the fans.

We’re also blessed to have a great summer schedule. I’ve been to Nashville Superspeedway many times. Never seen a race there in person. I’ll get to see Road America for the first time and I get to go to Indianapolis for the first time and see cars on the road course. Last year we covered that one remotely, so it’ll be good to be there.

These guys cover the storylines on the track. I think we’re very lucky to have not just storylines on the track, but like I mentioned, the track and the schedule itself is another storyline all in itself. We have a little sprint here to an Olympic break, and then when we get back from the Olympics the heat will be turned on completely for the NASCAR playoffs on who’s going to make it. And with already 11 different winners and some huge names yet to win, Harvick and Hamlin come to mind, I think that that playoff leaderboard is only going to continue to get tighter, and as the pressure increases, the entertainment increases.

It’s been a lot of fun to watch, but watching is a little bit of fun. It’s a lot more fun to cover, so I can’t wait to get there in person and do it again this weekend.

Dale, I think you’ve been heavy in the promotion for the Cup race and you’re part of the group on the INDYCAR race. Nashville is really hot right now. Everybody is talking about racing in Nashville again. I’m wondering why you think that the Nashville market will work for all this racing, and then there’s talk of the Fairgrounds, as well. How does the speedway differentiate itself from all this other racing talk and activity going on in the city?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Well, it’s such a unique track compared to the Fairgrounds and obviously the street course for the INDYCAR. I think the way that — physically they’re all different. They’re all going to provide a different type of entertainment, a different style of race, and I think that the town is big — there’s enough energy and enough entertainment to go around for everybody.

You know, I think a rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing, and the success from each event is a plus for the rest of them. They each can learn off each other and play off each other, and so I don’t see how it can’t work.

I think it is pretty interesting how all this — everybody is going to Nashville. Yeah, INDYCAR and NASCAR, everybody is kind of coming to Nashville and focusing on Nashville, honing in on Nashville as a place to be. I think it’s a long time coming to be honest with you. It should have happened years and years ago.

Nashville is a great fit. The town does have a lot of energy. When we were doing the Burnout on the Boulevard, that was a moment for me, I was upstairs in one of those buildings looking out the window watching all that happen, and it was clear as day that this was a great relationship and a great partnership with NASCAR and the city of Nashville. It just felt normal. It didn’t even feel new. It felt like an old friend and a buddy you hadn’t hung out with in a long, long time. I like it a lot, and I love the fact that we’re celebrating our champion there.

Vegas was a great time, New York was a great time. Very long way to go, but still a lot of fun any time you can get to Vegas. But Nashville for me can provide and be that same experience to where we feel like the crowning of the champion is the most important day in the sport in my opinion — where we celebrate the year and we acknowledge all of the things that happened in our sport in that one night.

I think that the fit for the city is a good one, and we need to be racing there. We need to have our product there. So now that’s happening. All of this seems to be coming full circle. It all makes sense to me.

I think it’ll be fun to see how it all works together. Like you say, with INDYCAR and NASCAR both trying to get into Nashville and make things happen, I think it’ll be fun to see how they might work together to make things better for everybody.

Just to be clear, you’re talking about the burnouts during the awards ceremony, you watched those from up in a building?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yes.

My question is for Steve Letarte on the crew chief side. Of course you have Daytona and Talladega coming up on the schedule and just earlier this month there was the announcement that NASCAR is going to implement new safety precautions for the superspeedway, including they’ll reduce the whole spaces in the tapered spacer as well as the wicker on the spoiler being removed and the additional roof bar being mandatory, this of course coming after Joey Logano’s scary crash. I was curious, when fans watch Daytona and Talladega on NBC, what effect do you think this will have on the races and what do you think fans can expect when they watch the superspeedways?

STEVE LETARTE: So when we talk about the safety improvements to the race car, a bar was added to the car. I don’t think the fans will be able to see that. They’ll have no idea. It’s just continuing the improvement towards the safest product possible. NASCAR has done that for years and decades and they’re just continuing.

There has been an adjustment to the power, to the speed, and I will be a hundred percent honest, I’m not sure from the grandstands or on TV you’re going to see the difference in the six or eight miles an hour that it may slow them down. I think the aggression from the pack and from the second-place driver will be just as high. I think the leader will have to work just as hard to try to protect that lead.

It’s a small adjustment that’s needed just for safety. The physics of a car getting airborne has a lot to do with the speed when it turns backwards and sideways, and NASCAR obviously felt like they needed to make an adjustment, but I honestly think that the product on track is going to be just as exciting as it has looked. The plate races recently have been a great balance of aggression and strategy, and I think that’s continuing — that’s got to continue.

I will say Daytona we learned a year ago as the cutoff to the regular season has a completely different feel than I ever remember the night race at Daytona in the summer having. That last-ditch effort for everyone to find a seat at the table when the playoffs start a week later I think has a completely different energy to it. There’s a new level of desperation, and then as you go into the playoffs and you see Talladega, it’s kind of the same way. It has a different feel than the spring race at Talladega because of what’s on the line.

There are some big names protecting their playoff positions and other people looking for that win needed to continue.

I think that’s the beauty of the two speedway races you’re going to see on NBC is their position within the schedule. I think to end the regular season is great, and then being placed where it is in the playoffs, it makes Talladega even more vital.

Steve, you were saying on Nate’s podcast, don’t worry about any of the data from all those test sessions back eight or ten years ago, but Chase Briscoe did say that he watched some video before he went and did the tire test there and he felt like it helped him some. I’m kind of curious, do you feel like these races will be anything the same from what we saw in Xfinity and trucks in the past? Or do you feel like these teams should just not look at anything from 10 years ago?

STEVE LETARTE: Well, I think it’s two sides of a question. If I’m a competitor trying to prepare, I would absolutely look at the prior races. I would look at the data of the track. I would try to understand what made a good car good and a bad car bad, what point of the racetrack does your car have to perform the best. If I was a Cup driver and crew chief, I would be there on Thursday to watch Xfinity practice in person, watch cars go around the racetrack, understand as much as I can about that racetrack before going on the racetrack.

Now, flip that same question, if you’re asking me as an observer, I don’t believe that what happened over a decade ago really relates to what we’re going to see on the racetrack right now. I’m a true believer that you could race the same racetrack five times in a row and get five completely different products because every race seems to be its own kind of living, breathing thing and the way people approach it and who may be good or who may not be good.

I know that’s a two-parted answer, but I think the history of the racetrack is very important to the people competing. I don’t believe the history of the racetrack is fair in any way to have any idea what we may or may not see. I’m thankful there’s some practice and qualifying to be honest. It’s going to give me kind of a good idea by the end of practice I think what the challenge of that track is for this type of car in this realm of technology, but until we line them up there — double-file restarts, that comes to mind. 10 years ago there were no double-file restarts. There’s so many things that have changed, I don’t think we have any idea really what the product is going to be, and I think some of the unknown is a little bit of the charm. I’m looking forward to it without a big notebook full of expectations.

For Dale Jr., I’m curious, do you feel like it was important to get this race, get a Cup race in Nashville at this track just to build on that momentum on the vibe from the awards ceremony? And I think Jerry Caldwell told the Nashville politicians that he believes both tracks could coexist on a Cup schedule, that that market could certainly be a two-race market.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, I think that it absolutely can exist in the same season, and there’s a lot of different ways that can happen. The fact that the tracks are so uniquely different, it really helps that argument a little bit because you won’t see the same product or the same action at either one.

You know, there’s a lot of hurdles between that becoming a reality.

I think that there’s a lot of work that’s went into bringing back the speedway. There’s so much effort going into it.

I think that it’s important for us to be in Nashville. It absolutely builds on — imagine — I guess when we celebrated the banquet in New York City, it’s the big apple, it’s New York City, yes, it’s an amazing place, but we weren’t racing there, and so it was quite different as far as the vibe for me when we went to Vegas and we had a race in town. You could see us race and then we were going to be back to crown our champion. It seemed to make sense. The town embraced it.

I feel that same thing from the city of Nashville as far as how they — you want to feel welcomed or you want to feel wanted, and I absolutely feel like Nashville is eager to have NASCAR there, whether it’s the banquet, whether it’s the race, and they’re embracing that, and it’s a good feeling.

It opens up so many possibilities, so many possibilities for the banquet to grow into the marquee event that it is and for our NASCAR event to be an entertainment event, as well.

We have the race that happens on Sunday, but there’s so many other things or possibilities or opportunities to provide fans with an amazing weekend, things that can happen on Friday and Saturday outside of the racing events of the Truck and Xfinity and Cup Series, the entertainment side of that and the opportunities there are endless, especially in a town like Nashville that provides so much entertainment. It’s a hub for the music industry, and we can take advantage and tap into that and do so many crossovers with our athletes and musicians and so forth.

It’s just a great opportunity going forward to bring a ton of energy, and really our sport can take advantage of that. So I’m pumped up about the connection to Nashville, this new sort of renewed relationship that we have with the city.

I don’t know who wants to take this. I’ve got some big personalities on the call, including a many times over most popular driver. Chase Elliott is both the most popular driver and the champion, and yet he often is not in a very good mood after a race. I’m wondering how long you guys think that the way he sort of projects himself on TV and in those situations will work and if that’s a good look for the ambassador of the sport.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I guess I can take that. I’ve seen Chase in a lot of different moods, and we often sort of criticized him about how hard he was on himself and then he started winning races and started feeling like some of the attention was deserved. He seemed more comfortable when he started having the success that he thought he should be having.

Now he’s a champion, and I think that all of this is kind of happening so fast. He’s pretty young and still has a lot to figure out, and I think that to win a championship and have success and be thrust into this position that he’s in at such a young age, I don’t expect him to have it figured out. I don’t expect him to be perfect. I don’t expect him to know exactly how his personality rubs people, whether it’s the right way or the wrong way.

It’s all kind of trial by fire, and he’s kind of learning as he goes. He’ll make mistakes. He won’t get it right every time. I know that I didn’t. I think I guess what I’m saying is I can give him a lot of leeway and a lot of time to sort of figure out who he wants to be. He’s kind of struggling, I think, with really where he fits in.

We’ve been working on this piece with him. I have been working on this piece with him to know more about him and learn more about him and understand really who he is, and when you really get to know who Chase is, the thing about him wanting to stay connected to his roots, to his hometown so he’s not lured away from there by the need to feel — the feeling of needing to be in Charlotte near the race team and all this, he does his own thing.

I think once — he just does his own thing. It’s good enough for him, and like it or you don’t like it, it doesn’t really matter. I think when he wins, he’s happy. You get great reaction, and so far I guess — he’s got a long way to go. I think a lot has happened to him in a very short time at a very young age.

JEFF BURTON: I’ll add to that. I think that Chase has a real sense inside of himself as accountability, and I think that some of his comments and some of his body language is just a way that he — it feels like to me he holds himself accountable to whatever happens: Good, bad, and especially the bad.

I think that that comes across as negative to some people, when in fact I think he’s just saying, I need to be better. Like I’m not pointing the finger at somebody else saying, they need to do it. He just seems like he’s a very self-aware, I can impact this, and some of those post-race comments come across as really negative, but I just believe that he’s holding himself accountable.

I also think — Steve and I were in this conversation this morning talking about a lot of drivers. These guys are young, and they change. We all change in life, and we’re not the same people at 20 that we are at 30 and then again at 40. I think that we put the camera on these guys and we show them — what’s great about the sport, we have this unbelievable access to them, and right out of an event when you’re hot, mad, happy, whatever that emotion is, your life revolves around that stuff, we’re right there.

Everybody handles that differently, and they change and they grow and they mature. I think he’s actually — when you sit down and get away from everybody, he’s a very positive guy. He’s a very engaging person. But I think he’s very reserved around other people, but I believe that for my view of that is that’s for good reasons, and I think it’s all about self-accountability.

RICK ALLEN: I just wanted to reiterate, 25 years old. You look at athletes that come out of college that are 22, 23 years old, they’re thrust into the NFL, it’s a hard transition. You’ve got a kid who’s 25 years old who grew up in a household where his dad is a Hall of Famer, most popular driver forever until Jr. came along, and you just have great expectations. I’m sure he has unbelievable expectations for himself, and at the age of 25 he’s still trying to figure out how do I show these emotions, what do I give to people that are asking for so many things like Jeff says, right out of the car, just out of competition.

He’s going to learn, and at 25 years old, I think he’s done a pretty impressive job of showing us what a champion looks like in NASCAR. I think he’s a pretty exceptional young man.

Sam, with INDYCAR you’ll see very limited commercial breaks and side by side instead of just full traditional breaks. Given that INDYCAR does this almost every break, why isn’t that something we could bring in with NASCAR?

SAM FLOOD: We’ve been doing that for the last six years. We have a very similar pattern. NASCAR races are longer and there are a certain number of races that are on broadcast TV that have to be full screen. They’re called station breaks, and those will always be full screen commercials. When cautions happen, we try to get in our national full-screen commercials.

But the last hour and a half to two hours of race it’s always side by side. We’ve got a great structure in place. Our advertising community has embraced the technique and the policy, and that’s what we’ve been going with for a long time.

We’re on board with you, and we’re executing that.

Steve, this is probably something you might better understand as a crew chief. Chase Briscoe during the Goodyear tire test a few months ago said that the tires were cording after 20 to 25 laps in. Given that some tracks even with older surfaces we don’t see that happening, what exactly causes tires to cord during a tire test?

STEVE LETARTE: Well, I would assume a big issue with the tire test is just a lack of track activity. When you look at any surface, asphalt or concrete, it really makes no difference, it has a certain amount of coarseness to it, kind of like a piece of sandpaper, and if you can imagine a piece of sandpaper and you rub it on a softer surface like a tire, it actually fills in some of the ridges on the surface and actually makes that piece of sandpaper less course, and that’s what laps do. The more a car runs around a racetrack, it over time fills in some of the deeper and more aggressive areas of the track, and as it does that, the next time by and the next times it wears less and less and less.

This is a major facility; it’s a huge amount of concrete, and it’s going to take more than three or four cars at a tire test to see a big shift, plus Goodyear has to bring back a tire and try to guess a little bit at these tests of what kind of car versus track, and now that they have that data, I’m sure the tire they’re going to bring back this weekend is going to give the teams a great opportunity to put on a good show, and that’s really what we’re looking for. So not a big surprise that wear was very high at the tire test.

Rick, can you talk a little bit about the atmosphere of calling the race now that the fans are back in the stands?

RICK ALLEN: Well, I think one of the greatest things that happened last year during the pandemic was when we got the call from Sam and Jeff Behnke that said we’re sending you guys back to the racetrack. We really appreciated Marcus Smith and him allowing us to call the races from Charlotte Motor Speedway, but there was just — it was really vanilla to be in a booth at a racetrack but not hear the crowd and not feel that energy and not hear the cars and smell the smells that you smell at a racetrack.

So when we were able to go back to the racetrack, it was an amazing transformation. We really appreciate being able to be right in the mix of what’s going on.

Our booth automatically has an energy because we love the sport so much, but that energy, it’s exponential when you add the crowd. When you see the crowd jumping to their feet and you hear them roar and you just feel that, we feed off of that. That’s something that we love as a broadcast team, just to feed off of that energy that the crowd gives us.

That’s why we’re so excited to go to Nashville this weekend, a sold-out crowd, capacity crowd. We’re going to feed off of that just like everybody in America is feeding off of it right now, being able to enjoy sporting events like we used to be able to. So we’re looking forward to this weekend.

Since you’ve been there before, what advice or message have you given your drivers at JRM about maybe what they can expect or what to look for coming up this weekend at the track?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Well, they will watch some videos of the races from the past there to be able to get an idea what the line is and where guys are making passes, how guys are setting passes up. But this track is pretty unique, and due to the concrete surface and the difference in how the tires grip the concrete versus an asphalt track, you think you can drive way deeper into Turn 1 than you can. You have to lift pretty early for that corner to have the grip you need in the middle of the corner. It’s easy to over-drive Turn 1.

That’s probably the first thing they’re going to learn, and they’ll figure that out.

And then the real challenge for a concrete track, especially a mile-and-a-half where you’re just constantly turning the wheel, is trying to get the car to rotate, getting the front to work without chattering the right rear tire because if you chatter the right rear tire or get loose at this track, you’re going to be really slow. It’s just going to be a balance of trying to get the car neutral to where you’ve got the car turning but not enough rear grip to lean on the right rear.

It’s a bit of a challenge. It’s very kind of frustrating to be honest with you. I always found the concrete surfaces to be super frustrating.

Now, I’ve had some fun and good races at Dover and Bristol, but those surfaces are aggravating as heck, and I think this one is going to throw a lot of challenges at the teams because it’s going to change so much throughout the weekend as more and more cars run on it, more laps are ran on it.

Harrison was talking about how he leaves a lot of the business stuff to you, and I’m curious when you’re trying to kind of manage or figure out what your son or driver should do, how do you do it when it seems like there’s all these talks of new owners and teams being bought out? How do you even know who to talk to and what’s going to — how to kind of try to set a path when you really don’t know potentially what teams are going to be out there in two or three years?

JEFF BURTON: I think as a sport in general, and we talk a lot about this, this new car is changing the Cup level, and I think that’s going to change Xfinity as well as Trucks. The big question is how? There’s a lot of unknowns in regard to what does next year’s Cup — how does their business affect what happens in Xfinity, Trucks, and then what opportunities get created by that.

So I think for Harrison, and I think it’s no different than for any young driver or experienced driver that’s looking for what is his opportunity next year is quite simply what’s available. What’s out there, what’s available? That all has to get sorted out.

Then does the new car create an opportunity that would not have been there? Does it take away an opportunity that would have been there?

I don’t know of a time in the sport where there’s been so many unknowns, and that’s not just for drivers, that’s for crew members, that’s for car owners, that’s for the industry in general. I think there’s a certain amount of wait and-see that has to happen. I think there’s also a certain amount of when you do see it and it looks right, I think you need to act. I think that’s going to be important, as well, because I think when things start happening, they’re going to happen rapidly.

Not just for Harrison, I look at it as a person that’s been around the sport a long time, is in many different roles, there’s just — next year I think is going to be crazy, and leading up to next year I think this silly season, as we call it, is going to be pretty intense.

I just think you have to look at what’s there. I think you have to respect the relationships that you have. I think you have to respect those relationships. I think you have to look at opportunities. It’s just eyes wide open, peek over and see what’s over there and see where you are, and that’s all you can do. I think that’s all everybody can do.

I think there’s just so much happening right now in the sport, and even though there’s so much happening, it’s hard to say right now these are all the opportunities. Some bit of patience I think is important, but at some point people are going to start to lose patience and start making decisions really quickly, but you just have to position yourself to see what’s available.

Again, I want to be clear, that’s not just for Harrison, that’s for everybody. That’s for every single person involved in the sport right now.

REMINDER NBC SPORTS 2021 NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL – TODAY AT 1:30 P.M. ET

June 15, 2021 By admin Leave a Comment

Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Steve Letarte, Rick Allen and Executive Producer Sam Flood

Dial 800-367-2403 to Participate

NASCAR Cup Series Returns to Nashville with the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway Sunday, June 20, at 2:45 p.m. ET on NBCSN

STAMFORD, Conn. – June 15, 2021 – NBC Sports’ NASCAR commentary team of analysts Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte, and play-by-play voice Rick Allen, as well as executive producer Sam Flood, will host a media conference call today at 1:30 p.m. ET to preview NBC Sports’ portion of the 2021 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, which begins this Sunday, June 20, at 2:45 p.m. ET with the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on NBCSN.

Media interested in participating should call 800-367-2403; Passcode: 7785210.

WHAT: NBC Sports 2021 NASCAR Media Conference Call
WHO: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Steve Letarte, Rick Allen, Sam Flood
WHEN: Today at 1:30 p.m. ET
NUMBER: 800-367-2403
PASSCODE: 7785210

NBC Sports will welcome NASCAR’s return to Nashville from Nashville Superspeedway beginning with live coverage of the Xfinity Series race this Saturday, June 19, at 3 p.m. ET on NBCSN. Pre-race coverage of the Ally 400 Cup Series race will get underway Sunday, June 20, at 2:45 p.m. ET, with the green flag slated to wave shortly following 3:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN. Click here for more information on NBC Sports’ 2021 NASCAR coverage.

NBC SPORTS’ NASCAR COVERAGE

NBC Sports is the official home of the 2021 NASCAR Playoffs, covering the race for the NASCAR Cup Series & NASCAR Xfinity Series championships. NBC Sports’ NASCAR programming also includes races from NASCAR’s regional touring series; annual events such as the NASCAR Awards and NASCAR Hall of Fame induction ceremony; and original programming across NBC Sports platforms.

–NBC SPORTS–

NBC SPORTS 2021 NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL – TOMORROW, JUNE 15, AT 1:30 P.M. ET

June 14, 2021 By admin Leave a Comment

Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Steve Letarte, Rick Allen and Executive Producer Sam Flood

Dial 800-367-2403 to Participate

NASCAR Cup Series Returns to Nashville with the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway Sunday, June 20, at 2:45 p.m. ET on NBCSN

STAMFORD, Conn. – June 14, 2021 – NBC Sports’ NASCAR commentary team of analysts Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte, and play-by-play voice Rick Allen, as well as executive producer Sam Flood, will host a media conference call tomorrow, June 15, at 1:30 p.m. ET to preview NBC Sports’ portion of the 2021 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, which begins this Sunday, June 20, at 2:45 p.m. ET with the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on NBCSN.

Media interested in participating should call 800-367-2403; Passcode: 7785210.

WHAT: NBC Sports 2021 NASCAR Media Conference Call
WHO: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Steve Letarte, Rick Allen, Sam Flood
WHEN: Tomorrow, June 15, at 1:30 p.m. ET
NUMBER: 800-367-2403
PASSCODE: 7785210

–NBC SPORTS–

NBC SPORTS 2021 U.S. OPEN MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL – WEDNESDAY AT 1 P.M. ET

June 7, 2021 By admin Leave a Comment

Play-by-Play Commentator Dan Hicks, Analyst Paul Azinger, On-Course Reporter Jim “Bones” Mackay and Producer Tommy Roy

Dial 800-437-2398 to Participate

STAMFORD, Conn. – June 7, 2021 – NBC Sports play-by-play commentator Dan Hicks, analyst Paul Azinger, and on-course reporter Jim “Bones” Mackay, as well as producer Tommy Roy, will preview the upcoming 2021 U.S. Open Championship at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, Calif., on a media conference call this Wednesday, June 9, at 1 p.m. ET.

Media interested in participating should call 800-437-2398; Passcode: 3652725.

- WHAT: 2021 U.S. Open Media Conference Call
- WHO: Dan Hicks, Paul Azinger, Jim “Bones” Mackay, and Tommy Roy
- WHEN: Wednesday, June 9, at 1 p.m. ET
- NUMBER: 800-437-2398
- PASSCODE: 3652725

In total, NBC Sports will provide more than 45 hours of live U.S. Open championship coverage Thursday-Sunday – reaching 100-plus hours of live coverage from Torrey Pines including featured groups and featured holes coverage.

—NBC SPORTS—

LEIGH DIFFEY, TOWNSEND BELL, PAUL TRACY AND SAM FLOOD PREVIEW 105th INDIANAPOLIS 500 – TOMORROW AT 4 P.M. ET

May 25, 2021 By admin

105^th Indianapolis 500 Presented This Sunday at 11 a.m. ET on NBC; Pre-Race Coverage of “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” Begins at 9 a.m. ET on NBCSN

Dial 800-353-6461 to Participate

STAMFORD, Conn. – May 25, 2021 – NBC Sports’ lead INDYCAR commentary team of Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell, and Paul Tracy, as well as executive producer Sam Flood, will preview the 105^th Running of the Indianapolis 500 on a media conference call tomorrow, Wednesday, May 26, at 4 p.m. ET.

Media interested in participating should call 800-353-6461; Passcode: 1022546.

WHAT: 105^th Indianapolis 500 Media Conference Call
WHO: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell, Paul Tracy, and Sam Flood
WHEN: Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 26, at 4 p.m. ET
NUMBER: 800-353-6461
PASSCODE: 1022546

NBC Sports presents the 105^th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Presented by Gainbridge from Indianapolis Motor Speedway this Sunday, May 30, at 11 a.m. ET on NBC. Six-time INDYCAR champion and 2008 Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon won the pole position and will lead the field to the green flag for this year’s Indy 500. Race day coverage begins at 9 a.m. ET on NBCSN.

This week’s coverage from Indianapolis Motor Speedway begins on Friday with the final practice session on Carb Day on NBCSN and Peacock at 11 a.m. ET.

—NBC SPORTS—

TRANSCRIPT – DREW BREES INTRODUCTORY CONFERENCE CALL

March 17, 2021 By admin

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Sam Flood

Drew Brees

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our call to introduce Drew Brees as the newest member of the NBC Sports team. In just a moment we’ll be joined by Drew as well as NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood. As you all know, it was announced on Monday that Drew will be joining our team as a studio analyst on Football Night in America and as a game analyst for our Notre Dame broadcasts. Let’s begin with opening remarks from Sam Flood.

SAM FLOOD: Thanks, Chris, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We are thrilled that Drew is officially on the NBC Sports team. He scared a bunch of people when he was pushing that sled and getting that massive workout in a few weeks ago, throwing people off the scent and even giving us pause.

But we’re really excited to have a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and future Hall of Famer working for us, coming in in a Super Bowl year, joining Football Night and Notre Dame, and he’ll be part of big events at NBC like the Olympics and the Derby as we go forward, and a perfect year to have him join the Super Bowl out in LA. We can’t wait to get going.

Then for the Notre Dame games, Mike Tirico and Drew will have a lot of fun in South Bend. A Boilermaker calling the Notre Dame games. Should be a fun listen and a good chance to experience college football again, which is one of the things that’s exciting about this deal, touching multiple parts of the company and of the sports world.

With that, we welcome Drew and want to pass it off to you because he’s the person everyone wants to hear from right now. So, Drew, take it away.

DREW BREES: Thank you, Sam, and thank you to everyone who’s tuned in. I could not be more excited to be joining the NBC team. Certainly, in my opinion, it is the best of the best from the top down. My experience thus far with every member of NBC has been first class, and I’m really looking forward to jumping on board. Again, being part of the college football broadcast as a game analyst with Notre Dame football and then as a studio analyst with Football Night in America. I look forward to working very closely with the team, especially Mike Tirico, Rodney Harrison, Tony Dungy and many others.

At this point, I’ll turn it over to everyone for questions, and I’m excited to get started.

Q. Sam, how do you foresee it working out with Mike Tirico and Al Michaels with Al in the last year of his contract and then also with Drew and Cris Collinsworth in terms of Drew potentially doing Sunday Night Football and maybe the Super Bowl one day?

SAM FLOOD: Well, first of all, with Mike and Al, that process, conversations continue. It will be similar to this last year in terms of how we map that out. In terms of the booth for Sunday Night Football and Cris, Cris remains among the best to have ever done it, and the plan is to have him in that chair for a long time. So, the opportunity down the road is not something we’re looking at right now. We’re focused on Football Night in America, the Notre Dame partnership with Mike Tirico, and that’s really what this opportunity is about.

Q. From the Notre Dame side of things, what do you remember about your trips there, however many years ago, and what you may remember coming forward this year when Purdue will actually be their second game?

DREW BREES: Yes, don’t think I didn’t see that on the schedule right away. No, I remember vividly my two experiences at Notre Dame, both in 1998 and 2000. Both games, in my opinion, we should have won and somehow, someway Touchdown Jesus got us in the end. But I’m extremely excited to be in the booth with Mike Tirico broadcasting those Notre Dame games. There’s no question that that is really one of the epicenters of college football. The history and the nostalgia that exists there and I think just what that place represents to so many people, it is a special place.

I will say this, I will be impartial for every game with the exception of the Purdue game because my bloodlines run deep with the black and gold and the Boilermakers.

But on a serious note, I’m excited to be a part of that and really continue, I think, the legacy of what Notre Dame football has meant to so many and obviously extremely excited to be in the booth with Mike Tirico.

Q. Even though you’re not initially doing the booth for the NFL, any quarterback coming into this business these days is going to be judged a little bit against what Tony Romo has done. What do you think about the way he made that transition and how much of what he’s done do you kind of study as a template for how you might make that transition?

DREW BREES: Sure, I think Tony has done a great job. I think that what Tony did was — I think he very quickly showed football fans everywhere just the way that an NFL quarterback can see and process the game, and it’s obviously maybe much different than what they’ve seen or heard before.

Obviously, he’s had a ton of success and, listen, Tony has his own style, and I think that the best piece of advice that I’ve gotten so far when stepping into this business and stepping into the booth is just to be yourself. I think that’s exactly what Tony has done. I think that if you look at all the great broadcasters from Cris Collinsworth to Troy Aikman to Jon Gruden to all the guys from history, man, everybody had their own style, right? John Madden. You certainly want the fans to kind of get a glimpse into the way that you see and process the game but also feel your love and passion for the game.

I think that’s what was so intriguing about this transition from being a player to going into the booth is that I love this game, and I love watching this game, I love talking about this game, and it gives me the opportunity to stay very closely connected, to show my love and passion for the game but in a different way, and also for fans to get a glimpse into how I see it, how I process it. And then the trick is to be able to articulate that in a way where fans can not only understand it, but I want them to walk away from the game after listening to me talk about it saying, ‘Man, I know a lot more about the game now’ or ‘I know a lot more about that play or that team’ or ‘I have a new appreciation for it’ and also feel that it was very entertaining.

Q. With everything you have going on with your pro football career, how much Notre Dame football have you been able to watch recently? And within that question, what are your impressions of the Notre Dame program at this point?

DREW BREES: You know, ironically, I watched quite a few games last year. Obviously, they had a phenomenal run. It was fun to watch them on that journey. I feel like just from watching them this last year, I got a bit of a feel for their team and their style of play, their offense. Obviously, they had those two big games with Clemson along the way, as well, so those were fun to watch.

Obviously it’s one thing to watch it on TV, it’s another thing as you begin to really study the team and study their personnel and the coaching staff and just — college football is so interesting, right, because you get your recruiting class that comes in, and in most cases you know that you’re going to have these guys for four, five years, and so you build your team, you build your program off of that. Obviously, the NFL can be very different from the perspective that, man, the complexion of a team can change very quickly from year to year with free agency and the draft, etc., etc.

I’m interested to dive back into college football and understand the style that’s being played. I think more so now than ever, you see this crossover of NFL and college. You’ve got coaches that are jumping back and forth, and I think you have the styles of play that are beginning to mimic each other because you have quarterbacks going from college football into the pros and they’re so versatile, they’re so athletic, they can do so many things that you see these offenses in the NFL skew more towards really catering towards the skill set of those players coming from college.

I’m really intrigued to dive into it and understand it further, study it further.

Q. Just wondering when you were at Purdue, had broadcasting been something that you always thought about? Just thinking that former Purdue QBs Bob Griese and Len Dawson have had successful broadcasting careers.

DREW BREES: You know, I probably didn’t think about it until two or three years ago. I’ve always loved watching football, even when I wasn’t playing it. People would always ask me, ‘Do you go home and just shut the TV off because you just have had enough of it?’ And I was like, ‘No, absolutely not.’ I love the game. I’m a fan of the game. I love watching college football, I love watching NFL. So, if a game is on, I’m typically watching it. Usually I’m sitting back and watching it from a quarterback’s perspective, I’m studying the game, I’m studying the offense, trying to anticipate what moves are going to be made on both sides of the ball. That’s kind of the way we process it as a quarterback.

Over the years I really started listening to commentators and listening to their delivery and how they would set things up and the topics they would choose to talk about and the game became even more interesting that way just feeling like that was something that I could transition to.

I’d say the defining moment for me was a few years ago, actually before the NFL season started. I believe this would have been 2017. I flew my family up to Indianapolis because Purdue was hosting Louisville and Lamar Jackson in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. It was before our NFL season had started. We had a weekend off, so flew the family up there to watch the Boilermakers and was watching the game and was invited into the studio to chat football and the upcoming season, but also to comment on the game.

I’m telling you, when I put those headphones on and I started seeing the game from that vantage point and then beginning to talk about it, it was like the lightbulb went on, and I said, ‘Man, I can do this and I would love it and I think I could be really good at it.’ I think that’s when I started to think about it and take it serious.

Q. How much does football and the preparation of it, how much do you think that transfers over to the studio?

DREW BREES: I think it transfers a lot because, listen, I went from playing the game to now talking about the game, right? There’s a way that I would study opponents. There’s a way that I would prepare to go out and play my very best. I think the analysis of a game, of an opponent, of a team, is very much the same in that regard.

From that perspective, I think that especially having a great familiarity with the teams certainly in the NFL and once I have a chance to really study Notre Dame, I think that you’ll begin to anticipate, have a really great understanding both offensively and defensively what’s happening. Be able to anticipate what’s coming, the things that are happening. You watch players grow and develop and mature and you’re able to talk about that. I just think there’s so many positive themes and so many great things that we’re going to be able to talk about, and also just allow fans to see the game obviously, again, from a quarterback’s perspective and a guy who’s fresh out of the NFL game and certainly sees and processes a game differently than probably what they’ve heard before.

Q. You have obviously talked a lot in the past about feeling like you could play until you were 45. I probably would have taken the over on 20 years. What ultimately made you come to peace with this being the time and feeling like you were ready to walk away?

DREW BREES: Well, you know, you’ve heard me say this before. The last — I’d say ever since the 2017 season — I have truly approached each season like it could be my last. I’ve approached the off-season that way and then I’ve approached each and every game during the season that way. There was no additional pressure with that because I really tried to play every game like it was the Super Bowl, like it was the most important game of the season. So my preparation was always the same. It was always consistent. I always wanted to put my absolute best on the field every time out.

What I started to do was just enjoy some of the little things a bit more, the bus rides home, the plane rides home, the locker room after, just smell the roses, so to speak, and really just stay in the moment and enjoy it, and knowing if something happened where all of a sudden it was an injury or something and that was my last game, then I know that I poured everything I could into it.

I’ve just approached each year for the last four or five years that way, with that mindset, and I feel like that’s served me well. I think I’ve played some of my best football during that time.

At the end of the day, the factors that go into this are — I’ve always said as long as I could play the game at a high level, I’m having fun doing it and able to stay healthy — then this is something I’ll do forever. Obviously I’ve had some injuries the last two years that have been frustrating, both of them kind of freak things. I don’t think they were injuries that were saying I was getting old, but nonetheless, I have the thumb that holds me out five games two years ago and then had the ribs and the lung that holds me out for four games this past year. Could I keep playing? Yeah, I’m sure I could, but I’m also looking at my kids, my family, the age of my kids, and just gauging all of those things, there’s a balance there.

I also just felt like I would just feel it. I would feel when it was time. And I felt that it was time.

Q. Obviously you played college football in West Lafayette and played the Colts numerous times in your career, now you’re going to be going to South Bend in the fall for college football Saturdays. What stands out to you about the passion of fans from the state of Indiana, and did Notre Dame show any interest in you as a recruit out of Westlake High School?

DREW BREES: No, Notre Dame did not show me any interest and I do not blame them because there was nothing memorable about me, I don’t think, as a high school quarterback, or certainly nothing that would have jumped off the page. We had a ton of success as a high school program, and we never lost a game, won a state championship my senior year, went 16-0 and won the 5A State championship, I was the 5A State Player of the Year.

But I really wasn’t recruited by anybody. I was recruited by Purdue and Kentucky, and then I’d say the only reason I was recruited by those guys is because they had two brand new head coaches, Joe Tiller coming to Purdue from Wyoming, and Hal Mumme came from Valdosta State to Kentucky. Both of them had spread offenses, and both of them had gotten hired in late December and had to throw together a recruiting class, so those guys I think just kind of went out and took who they could get at that point, and I certainly ended up in the right place at Purdue, got an incredible education and four years of Big Ten football where we went to bowl games every year and won a Big Ten Championship and had a Rose Bowl appearance my senior year.

I would say the passion of the fans in Indiana — it’s a shame that that Purdue-Notre Dame annual match-up went away for a while. I hope that it comes back in perpetuity at some point. I’m really happy to see that Purdue will be at Notre Dame this year. That’ll be a great matchup and kind of renew that rivalry.

But when I got to Purdue, man, we were playing Notre Dame every year, we were playing IU every year, so just these in-state rivalries, and you’re playing for the Old Oaken Bucket or you’re playing for the Shillelagh (Trophy), all these trophies that are involved in the games and the history, and obviously the state is divided because you’ve got all these alums from three schools all spread out, it just made for an incredible atmosphere.

Q. You mentioned what you’ve seen and learned from Tony Romo in his transition. Have you had a chance to talk to him about that transition, and if so, what did he say?

DREW BREES: You know what, I have not talked to Tony yet, but he’s certainly on my list of people to talk to.

Q. You’ve of course been the Saints’ unquestioned quarterback for 15 years. How did you tell your teammates of your decision to retire and what message did you give Jameis (Winston) and Taysom (Hill) about carrying on the torch?

DREW BREES: Yeah, I’ve had some great conversations with my teammates. I think really over the last few years, I’ve been very up front about my mindset going into every season, and that is I’m going to play every season like it’s my last, and I will take time at the end of each season to evaluate where I am, both mentally, emotionally, physically and then make that decision one way or the other.

I’ve taken that time the last few off-seasons to do that. I think everybody probably felt like this was going to be my last year, and I think that created a great sense of urgency for all of us as we made our way through the season and had a very successful season.

I’m really excited for the opportunity that both Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston have. I can’t tell you how much fun we had together as a quarterback room, really a great group of guys, a great group of human beings — guys that really love the game of football, love their teammates. We love to work hard. We love to push each other. It was highly competitive. At the same time, we were there to support one another and help one another because we just wanted the team to win.

As you saw last year, there were moments where Taysom obviously had to start and did a phenomenal job for four years. There was a moment where Jameis had to come off the bench in the second half of the 49ers game when I had the ribs and the lung injury, and he came in and did a phenomenal job. I’ve seen so much growth and maturity from both of those guys over the last few years for Taysom and then last year for Jameis.

We’ll see how it plays out. It sounds like there’s going to be a pretty good quarterback competition, but it’s going to bring out the best in both of them.

Q. I was wondering what was the most difficult part of ultimately making that decision to walk away from the game?

DREW BREES: This decision was, of course, it’s a difficult one. I think the biggest thing is you have been a football player for so long, going back — I’ll count high school because high school football was very important to me. From high school to college to the NFL, that’s 28 years, so that’s two-thirds of my life. I’m 42 years old, so for two-thirds of my life, every decision that I’ve made has had football as the focus. Every decision you make is based on you as a football player, what’s going to help you be in the best position to succeed as a football player, every decision from the perspective of diet, what you’re putting in your body and how you’re working out and how you’re recovering and the amount of time you’re dedicating yourself to being the very best you can be at your craft.

You know, I understand why guys have such a hard time with the transition from football. I would compare it to if you are a heart surgeon and you have trained a majority of your life to be the very best heart surgeon that you can be, from college to your postgraduate studies to med school to your residency to then finally becoming a doctor, being a heart surgeon, having the chance to do something that so few get to do, but you’ve trained your whole life and have these dreams and ambitions of becoming this and all of a sudden, you wake up one day and somebody tells you you can’t do it anymore.

I get that — I’d say that’s where the biggest maybe fear and stress for most guys is, just from conversations I’ve had with so many, is man, there is a transition. There is a transition from playing the game to going and doing anything else because you can’t replicate the locker room and you can’t replicate running out of the tunnel. There’s just moments and feelings and emotions that are really, really hard to replicate after you’ve been a professional football player.

Now, I think the great thing about the opportunity that I have is, number one, I transitioned from one incredible team to another incredible team with NBC, the best of the best. I transitioned from a locker room, where man, I had so many great relationships and so much love and appreciation and administration for the people that I work with. I know this — Mike Tirico has been one of my favorite guys in the business for a very long time, and I’m as excited to be in the booth with Mike Tirico as I was to throw passes to Michael Thomas on Sundays, and I’m dead serious when I say that.

I get to talk about the game of football. I get to eat, sleep and breathe the game of football still. I get to show my love and passion for the game still, but just in a different way.

I feel like that’s certainly what will help ease the transition for me from being a player to now this role.

Q. What’s your ultimate goal? Do you want to do a Super Bowl? What’s your ultimate goal as a broadcaster?

DREW BREES: Most importantly for me, I want to create as great a fan experience as I can. I know what it’s like to watch a game, and I know what I would want to hear while I’m watching a game. I think what’s so unique, again, about the position that we’re in as an NFL quarterback, now transitioning into the booth, is I’m excited to show fans how I see the game and how I process the game and the things that I’m thinking about and the things that I’m anticipating and articulating it in a way that’s both educational and enjoyable to listen to.

Listen, I’m going to have my own style. I don’t even know what that style is yet, but I’m going to be myself, and I’m going to talk as if you’re sitting right next to me in my living room and we’re just watching the game together.

It’s going to be as authentic as it can possibly be because that’s the only way I know how. I hope people enjoy it. I hope people love it. At the end of the day I am going to work as hard at this as I do everything in my life.

And as far as what the future holds, I have no idea, but I do know I’m a part of the best team in the business with NBC, with one of the very best play-by-play guys in the business in Mike Tirico, and others that will be great mentors for me, guys like Cris Collinsworth, guys like Al Michaels and others that are part of the NBC team and I think do a phenomenal job. I’m very excited with this opportunity.

Q. A lot of people in New Orleans are wondering if you and your family will continue living in the city as much as you have during your time with the Saints, or if you will now relocate to San Diego or somewhere else. Just was wondering if you could take a moment to discuss what you and your family envision on that front.

DREW BREES: We will always have a strong presence in New Orleans. I have more things going on in the city of New Orleans right now than I have since we’ve been there. I’m sure you might have seen the article that just came out in regards to the proposal we submitted for the RFQ for the Jazzland Six Flags piece of property, where we intend to bring a nonprofit urban farming initiative that’s just going to be incredible for that community, for New Orleans East.

There’s that, and there’s about three other things that will slowly become public knowledge over the next weeks and months.

I’m as excited about that as I have been about anything that we’ve ever done in New Orleans, and honestly I feel that now, not being a football player, that I will have more of an opportunity to be involved in community initiatives and helping continue to push New Orleans forward as we’ve always tried to do.

DREW BREES AND NBC SPORTS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER SAM FLOOD HOST MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL TODAY AT 3:30 P.M. ET

March 17, 2021 By admin

Dial 800-353-6461 to Participate

Super Bowl XLIV MVP to Serve as Studio Analyst for Football Night in America and Game Analyst for Notre Dame Football

STAMFORD, Conn. – March 17, 2021 – Drew Brees, one of the greatest players in NFL history, will be on a conference call today at 3:30 p.m. ET along with NBC Sports Executive Producer Sam Flood to discuss his retirement and new role with NBC Sports. Media interested in participating should call 800-353-6461; Passcode: 2178011.

Earlier this week on the TODAY show, Brees announced that he is joining NBC Sports as a studio analyst for Football Night in America and as a game analyst for its coverage of Notre Dame Football. He will also work on many of NBC Sports’ biggest events, including the Olympics and Super Bowl LVI.

WHO: Drew Brees and NBC Sports Executive Producer Sam Flood
WHEN: Today at 3:30 p.m. ET
NUMBER: 800-353-6461
PASSCODE: 2178011

During a 20-year NFL career as quarterback with the New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers, Brees amassed an unprecedented collection of records, milestones and accolades, both on and off the field. He led the Saints to victory in Super Bowl XLIV and was named the game’s MVP. He was selected to 13 Pro Bowls, won two Offensive Player of the Year awards, is the NFL’s all-time leader with 80,358 career passing yards, ranks second all-time with 571 career passing touchdowns and shattered the league record with a touchdown pass in 54 consecutive games.

Brees has been just as prolific off the field. He and his wife, Brittany, established the Brees Dream Foundation in 2003, which has contributed more than $45 million to help improve the quality of life for cancer patients and provide care, education and opportunities for children and families in need. In 2006, Brees won the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, one of the league’s highest honors that recognizes a player for his excellence on and off the field.

For more on Drew Brees, click here.

–NBC SPORTS–

TIRICO, COLLINSWORTH, DUNGY, EARNHARDT JR., LOWE & OLCZYK PREVIEW NBC SPORTS’ “BIG EVENT WEEKEND”

November 6, 2020 By admin

“Wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t an NFC Championship preview.” – Mike Tirico on Saints-Buccaneers on Sunday Night Football

“Arguably the best player in the league.” – Cris Collinsworth on Saints RB Alvin Kamara

“We obviously wish we could see Trevor Lawrence, but D.J. Uiagalelei will put on a great performance.” – Tony Dungy on Clemson-Notre Dame

“When you have Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp…the two best managers in football right now anywhere on the globe, it is must-watch.” – Rebecca Lowe on Manchester City-Liverpool

“This is a pretty wild racetrack…You won’t want to miss it.” – Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the NASCAR Cup Series Championship

“It should be one heck of a weekend, lots of drama, horses from all over the world.” – Eddie Olczyk on the Breeders’ Cup Classic

STAMFORD, Conn. – Nov. 6, 2020 – Ahead of a huge weekend of high-profile sporting events across NBC Sports platforms this weekend, on-air commentators and analysts, joined by NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua, previewed the action in a special multi-sport media conference call yesterday.

Yesterday’s call consisted of Bevacqua, Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth, Tony Dungy, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Rebecca Lowe, and Eddie Olczyk. NBC Sports’ “Big Event Weekend” schedule is as follows:

- Breeders’ Cup Classic, Sat. Nov. 7 at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC
- #1 Clemson at #4 Notre Dame, Sat. Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC
- Manchester City v. Liverpool, Sun. Nov. 8 at 11:30 a.m. ET on Peacock Premium
- NASCAR Cup Series Championship, Sun. Nov. 8 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC
- Tom Brady & Buccaneers Host Drew Brees & Saints, Sun. Nov. 8 at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC

Following are highlights of yesterday’s conference call and click here for a full transcript:

On “Big Event Weekend” across NBC Sports

Bevacqua: “You think about the passion level of sports around the country over the course of this pandemic, how they really have served maybe more than ever as just a great form of escapism to bring some joy into people’s lives around the country and that’s really what motivates us and makes this, what we do each and every day, so uplifting…We’re grateful that live sports are back, maybe more furiously and feverishly than ever. I think it’s been a great moment for NBC Sports and should be a wonderful weekend.”

Tirico: “To have all these champions in sports; Notre Dame, Clemson, Brady and Brees, and the last couple of championships of the Premier League and the championship on the line with NASCAR and a couple of drivers who have won the Cup title, and…the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Bob Baffert and the other horses involved, what a great championship weekend this is.”

On the Breeders’ Cup Classic (Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC)

Tirico: “The Breeders’ Cup is so great every year, brings the best horses in the world together to wrap up the season…And Keeneland is just a special place to host the Breeders’ Cup.”

Olczyk: “It is all about Bob Baffert…He has three horses that will be, I would say, probably two of the top-3 favorites coming into the Breeders’ Cup Classic. It should be one heck of a weekend, lots of drama, horses from all over the world.”

On No. 1 Clemson at No. 4 Notre Dame (Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC)

Tirico: “Notre Dame’s built up all year for this game. They have even spoken about it the last couple of weeks, which is atypical for coaches, but Brian Kelly’s embraced that, looking ahead and what the players talk about, that elephant in the room, that’s the matchup with No. 1 Clemson.”

Dungy on Clemson QB D.J. Uiagalelei: “We watched him in his first start be 18 points down and bring his team back. Talking to all the Clemson players yesterday and coaches, they said there was no fear, no worry on the sideline. He was the most relaxed guy in the stadium, and he played lights out…We obviously wish we could see Trevor Lawrence, but D.J. Uiagalelei will put on a great performance.”

On Manchester City v. Liverpool (Sunday at 11:30 a.m. ET on Peacock Premium)

Lowe: “When these two get together, when you have Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, arguably, probably not even arguably, the two best managers in football right now anywhere on the globe, it is must-watch.”

Lowe on surprises this Premier League season: “We know it’s a soap opera, we know it’s always been a soap opera and every single week we get served up amazing story lines…The surprises are coming from the way the goals are being scored, who is scoring them and how many are being scored, which has led to such crazy results at times. But we’re all here for it.”

On NASCAR Cup Series Championship (Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on NBC)

Earnhardt Jr. on the final four drivers: “I don’t think anybody in terms of speed or performance throughout the year has a clear edge. I tend to look at the mentality of that driver, his attitude, how he’s handled stressful situations like this, high pressure situations like this in the past, and the guy that stands out to me when you go that route is Joey Logano.”

Earnhardt Jr. on racing in Phoenix: “This is a pretty wild racetrack…If we have late restarts in this race, which I expect we will, it’s going to be pretty dramatic. You won’t want to miss it.”

On the Buccaneers vs. Saints Sunday Night Football match-up (Sunday at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC)

Tirico: “Wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t an NFC Championship preview with the way these two teams are.”

Collinsworth: “This thing now is really starting to take shape around what Tom Brady likes to do, what his feel is for this offense. But you go, you know, on the other side of the ball…what Alvin Kamara has been this season. Arguably the best player in the league. I think he’s the best running back in football right now.”

Dungy on Antonio Brown: “Tom Brady and the Bucs are thinking playoffs, they’re not thinking this week. They would love to win this game and get that one up on New Orleans, but this is for January when you’re playing those big games and it’s tight and you need that one play to win it, is this a guy who can add that one play at the right time?”

Tirico on Brady: “Most scrutinized position in all of sports, greatest champion at that position, did it in one place for so long, still at a high level and going to do it somewhere else. It’s taking Bruce Springsteen away from the E Street Band and moving him to Maroon 5, like all of a sudden Maroon 5 is like, oh, my God, are you serious?… And no disrespect to Maroon 5 fans, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to knock them like that. (Laughing.)”

Collinsworth: “Maroon 5?”

Tirico: “I know. I don’t know why I picked that (laughing.)”

— NBC SPORTS —

TRANSCRIPT – NBC SPORTS BIG EVENT WEEKEND MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL

November 5, 2020 By admin

Thursday, November 5, 2020

Pete Bevacqua

Mike Tirico

Cris Collinsworth

Tony Dungy

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Rebecca Lowe

Eddie Olczyk

THE MODERATOR: Greetings, everyone and welcome to NBC Sports’ big event weekend media conference call. This is a special weekend for NBC Sports with numerous high profile events across both days.

Saturday we have the Breeders’ Cup Classic beginning at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on NBC. Saturday night, No. 1 Clemson at No. 4 Notre Dame. It’s the first time the No. 1 team in the country has been to Notre Dame Stadium in 15 years. Coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern on NBC.

On Sunday morning it’s the last two Premier League champions facing off, Manchester City and Liverpool. Coverage is exclusively streaming on Peacock Premium at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.

On Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. Eastern on NBC, the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion will be crowned, one of four drivers.

And the big event weekend concludes with Sunday Night Football, the NFL’s top two all-time passers, Tom Brady and Drew Brees, Buccaneers hosting Saints. It begins with Football Night in America at 7 p.m.

And to talk about this weekend is a truly impressive roster of NBC Sports hosts and analysts. We have Mike Tirico, who handles play-by-play for Notre Dame football and is our host for Football Night in America; Cris Collinsworth, our Sunday Night Football analyst; Tony Dungy, our analyst for both Notre Dame football and Football Night in America; Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR analyst; Rebecca Lowe, host of our Premier League coverage; and Eddie Olczyk, our Pucks and Ponies analyst who this week will be handicapping the Breeders’ Cup.

We’ll also be joined by NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua. A quick reminder that a transcript of this call will be available in a few hours on nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com or you can contact one of us in the NBC Sports Group communications department.

But let’s begin the call now with opening remarks from NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua.

PETE BEVACQUA: Thanks, I appreciate the introduction. I want to also thank everybody for being on the call today. Certainly going through an interesting, unique, and challenging time in our country’s history when you think about the pandemic. Obviously, with our election on Tuesday night and still kind of going into yesterday and today and maybe somewhat of the foreseeable future. We know you’re very busy, but just wanted to thank you for taking the time to be with us.

And thankfully we have sports. You think about the passion level of sports around the country over the course of this pandemic, how they really have served maybe more than ever as just a great form of escapism to bring some joy into people’s lives around the country and that’s really what motivates us and makes this, what we do each and every day, so up lifting. And I’ve been so really remarkably pleased with the effort of our team across the board during these really, really challenging times. When you think about the great work of Sam Flood, Molly Solomon, Fred Gaudelli, Rob Hyland, how we have kept the team united, how we’ve brought live sports back to the viewing public, and I think in such a remarkable way, and doing all of that while never losing site of the fact that we have to keep our people safe. We’re going into these sporting events certainly in a different atmosphere than anyone has ever expected or certainly has ever been trained to. And it’s really been a remarkable few months.

And this weekend is a perfect example. You think about what we have in store for us with the Breeders’ Cup on Saturday, we have this unbelievable matchup on Saturday night, which is obviously near and dear to my heart, with Clemson coming into Notre Dame. And you think back to these historic matchups when the No. 1 team in the country came and visited Notre Dame; you think of Miami in ’88, the great Charlie Ward FSU team in ’93; you think of the Bush Push game of 15 years or so ago when USC came into Notre Dame. And I think this has the ability to be another one of these great iconic Notre Dame football games.

And then we mentioned the Premier League, which has been so unbelievably successful for us, when you think about Manchester City and Liverpool, we’re going to have that on Peacock. And we have been so unbelievably pleased with the success of Peacock. We have seen firsthand the power of sports on Peacock and the impact the Premier League has had on the success of Peacock.

And then last but certainly not least, when you talk about an unbelievable sports weekend, we have this great matchup between Drew Brees and Tom Brady and New Orleans at Tampa in Tampa, which is a home game for Cris Collinsworth. So I know he’s excited about that.

But we’re grateful that live sports are back, maybe more furiously and feverishly than ever. I think it’s been a great moment for NBC Sports and should be a wonderful weekend. And again, wanted to thank all of you for being here with us and wanted to turn it over to a colleague and a dear friend, Mike Tirico. So Mike, take it away.

MIKE TIRICO: Hi, everyone. I’m in South Bend, Indiana. Just got here, getting set for the game. I haven’t been here for a three-day lead up for a game in quite some time.

But in any case, thank you, Pete. Let me pass the ball around to my friends and coworkers who most of whom I get to work with or see on a regular basis, so it’s a nice party-line way to catch up with everyone.

I’ll start with Tony Dungy as we get set for this game on Saturday with Clemson and Notre Dame. Tony, we have had a couple of weeks to get a look at Clemson, and then last week without Trevor Lawrence, who many think is the No. 1 player to be ready for the NFL draft next year, they are very fortunate to have an incredibly talented back up, DJ Uiagalelei, who is a true freshmen in his second start, first on the road. Do you think he can come into South Bend and beat the Irish?

TONY DUNGY: Well, he certainly can. If they don’t, it certainly won’t be his fault. We watched him in his first start be 18 points down and bring his team back. Talking to all the Clemson players yesterday and coaches, they said there was no fear, no worry on the sideline. He was the most relaxed guy in the stadium, and he played lights out. Only nine incomplete passes the whole day and just played great.

So it’s going to be a fantastic game. We obviously wish we could see Trevor Lawrence, but DJ Uiagalelei will put on a great performance. He’ll be ready to go. And he’s got a big challenge with that Notre Dame defense, but it should be very, very exciting.

MIKE TIRICO: Yeah, Notre Dame’s built up all year for this game. They have even spoken about it the last couple of weeks, which is atypical for coaches, but Brian Kelly’s embraced that, looking ahead and what the players talk about, that elephant in the room, that’s the matchup with No. 1 Clemson. And Pete hit it perfectly earlier. This is such a rare treat to have No. 1 at a stadium that’s been around for 91 years and has all the history that Notre Dame has. So we’re looking forward to that Saturday night.

And then Sunday night, it’s going to be a tremendous matchup with the two quarterbacks who have thrown for the most touchdown passes and the most yards in the history of the National Football League, Tom Brady and Drew Brees with Tampa and New Orleans. And Cris, obviously, there’s a lot beyond those guys, and their wide receiving corps are adjusting and getting right, finally, but here we are at the midway point of the season. What do you think of this as a measuring stick of these two teams as they play the second time around?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: New Orleans got after them pretty good the first time. But that team that they played, Tom Brady’s team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is not the Tom Brady team their going to see coming back in. It’s remarkable to see now how many more plays that resemble or directly copy the New England Patriots that are in this offense at this time. I mean, this thing now is really starting to take shape around what Tom Brady likes to do, what his feel is for this offense. But you go, you know, on the other side of the ball, and certainly what Drew Brees has been able to put together with this win streak, what Alvin Kamara has been this season. Arguably the best player in the league. I think he’s the best running back in football right now.

And they have done it all. Emmanuel Sanders has been out. He’s been on the COVID list. Michael Thomas basically has been a non-factor during the course of this season. But you begin to see that both of these teams are starting to get right. Both of these teams are starting to get that offense geared in exactly the way that they want it, and their guys back healthy. Neither of the receiving units have really been close to being a hundred percent. And as we come screaming down the stretch here in the National Football League, these are two teams that are going to be right there sitting at the top and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if one of them ends up in the Super Bowl.

MIKE TIRICO: And wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t an NFC Championship preview with the way these two teams are. And one of them, whoever doesn’t win the division, is going to slide down to a five seed and their road becomes very difficult. So these head-to-heads, especially if it’s a sweep for New Orleans, would be really, really huge to look at. So that’s Sunday night.

Then the other type of football, the Premier League, Pete mentioned earlier how they have continued to go through the difficulties that England has been dealing with COVID-19 as well. Liverpool and Manchester City — and every Sunday when I get to the studio for football night, I always love to pop into Studio 3 and talk five minutes of Premier League with Rebecca and the Robbies or Tim Howard, who has been a great addition to our team this year — and my love of soccer is only heightened when I get a chance to talk about it.

Rebecca, this match with Liverpool and City really brings two teams that had a remarkable 2018-2019 season that Man City won on their great run, and then Liverpool had the extraordinary year last year.

But as we hit their meeting this year, first time in a fixture, it’s a little bit different because Liverpool has still delivered, yet City hasn’t been what we have come accustomed to the last year or so.

REBECCA LOWE: You’re absolutely right. Pep Guardiola doesn’t normally stay at clubs longer than three years and he’s been a lot longer than that at Manchester City and he’s in the final year of his contract and he just feels like a different manager and therefore, when you look at the Premier League table, Manchester City, this great powerhouse of English football are sitting in 10th position going into this game. Now it is at home. It is against Liverpool, who over the years they have developed this huge rivalry just based on success. I mean, if you rewind the clock 10 years or even further, this has never been a rivalry. But this is all purely based on recent modern day success.

Liverpool, as you say, they have kept going. They haven’t had it all their own way. They have lost what most people see as the best defender in world football, Virgil van Dijk, to a knee ligament injury, out for probably the rest of the season. They have some problems in their back line because of that plus other injuries. So they’re having to bring in some youngsters, some young kids who have never played in the Premier League before, which that’s hard enough going into a Bournemouth or a Bryson or a Bermy, but to go into the Champions back line at the age of 19, like somebody like Rhys Williams, who may well play this weekend, is a huge amount to ask.

So Liverpool are not perfect. They do have a new striker up front that they got in the summer Diogo Jota, for around 45 million dollars, who has very much hit the ground running with goal after goal, hat trick after hat trick. He’ll probably play against Manchester City.

And as I say, it is at Manchester City, so although there are no fans, there is still a slight mental home advantage, but it’s only slight. So as difficult as this always is to call, Manchester City at home should still feel like their favorites, but the form and the table, Mike, as you say, tells you otherwise. But when these two get together, when you have Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, arguably, probably not even arguably, the two best managers in football right now anywhere on the globe, it is must-watch television.

MIKE TIRICO: And it feels like the rest of the Premier League is rooting for City to win at home because Liverpool seems always difficult to beat. So if they have a couple of losses on their card in the first eight matches, that would change the feel of the whole season. I am super excited for that on Peacock.

And Sunday, the NASCAR season comes to an end, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is on the line, as you know.

Junior man, when I saw the season play out and it was at Indy, you thought there was no way Kevin Harvick wouldn’t be part of the final four with nine wins, right? But he’s not. The final four is Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, a couple guys who won the Cup Series title, and then Chase Elliott. His youth, his excitement winning last week, his popularity just like his dad when he drove has a lot of folks thinking Chase Elliott has a chance. What are you looking for as we get down to the Final Four in Phoenix this weekend?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I think that Chase Elliott’s definitely not — I wouldn’t call him a dark horse — we have just never seen Chase in this situation to win a championship, but yet here he is and he’s coming off of a win at Martinsville. That was kind of a dominant win. So he’s going to have a real good shot at winning his first championship on Sunday and that Elliott name has a ton of history in our sport, so there will be a lot of folks I think pulling for Chase.

But honestly, the four drivers, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, I don’t think anybody in terms of speed or performance throughout the year has a clear edge. I tend to look at the mentality of that driver, his attitude, how he’s handled stressful situations like this, high pressure situations like this in the past, and the guy that stands out to me when you go that route is Joey Logano. He does everything he needs to do to win and he doesn’t apologize for it. And he can get aggressive, physical on the racetrack, and he doesn’t seem to crumble under pressure. I think that I have to kind of put him as the favorite for me, just slightly over Chase Elliott. I know Denny Hamlin has had an amazing season, but his performance in the playoffs has been just a little bit off. He’s not concerned, but it’s hard for me in my position not to be concerned about that. And Brad Keselowski, his whole motto this playoffs is, Why not us? I hear you. I hear you, Brad. But the speed for that team just seems to be a little bit below Joey Logano, his teammate.

But it will be interesting — it’s the first time that we’re going to go to Phoenix to crown our champion. We have traditionally done this at Homestead in Florida. This is a pretty wild racetrack, the restarts, they get four, five, six-wide down in turn one and two on these restarts. If we have late restarts in this race, which I expect we will, it’s going to be pretty dramatic. You won’t want to miss it.

MIKE TIRICO: NASCAR used to be it all comes down to Florida. Now it all comes down to Arizona, and maybe that applies elsewhere this week. Edzo, my man, I know you got some bets to make because you got racing going, two days worth at Keeneland. The Breeders’ Cup is so great every year, brings the best horses in the world together to wrap up the season, and to have it in the space in our country where the horse industry, really all the horses almost get their start in Keeneland, amazing breeding area for horses from that beautiful farm country. And Keeneland is just a special place to host the Breeders’ Cup and it’s headlined on Saturday afternoon by the Classic, Eddie. So I know the whole card is good, but just give us a little focus on what you’re looking for with the variety of horses we have who are pointing to the Classic, which could well decide Horse of the Year this year.

EDDIE OLCZYK: Great to be with everybody and we’re going to miss you here Mike, but we’re going to man the ship down here in Lexington. Yeah, it’s incredible. I mean, our relationship with horse racing, and particularly the Breeders’ Cup, is second to none. We have a lot of personnel on site and just looking forward to incredible racing. 14 Breeders’ Cup races, 31 million dollars on the line. As you mentioned, Mike, all headed to the Breeders’ Cup Classic, 6 million on the line. And a little tie in with Sunday Night Football. The late Tom Benson and his wife Gayle are into horse racing very much. They have Tom’s d’Etat, the No. 4 horse in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. It might be a daily double when it comes to pigskins and horses for the New Orleans Saints and winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic. So keep an eye on Tom’s d’Etat owned by the Benson family. It is all about Bob Baffert, as you know, Mike, with having three horses in this race out of the 10. He has the No. 8 horse, Improbable; the No. 9 horse, Authentic, who won this year’s Kentucky Derby ran on the first Saturday of September; and he also has Maximum Security changed to his barn, who crossed the line first in last year’s Kentucky Derby and was disqualified, and rightfully so, to 17th. He is now in his barn.

So he has three horses that will be, I would say, probably two of the top-3 favorites coming into the Breeders’ Cup Classic. It should be a one heck of a weekend, lots of drama, horses from all over the world. And considering we are living in a worldwide pandemic, to have these horses come in, being quarantined, their handlers being here, I think it speaks volumes to what people think about this great game and this great sport, and just truly proud to be a part of it this weekend. And we got a betting show coming up on NBCSN here in about an hour and a half. We have coverage tomorrow on Future Stars Friday at 2 o’clock. We’ll have five Breeders’ Cup races, and then we’ll be on both networks, NBCSN at noon on Saturday and then switch over to the big network at 2 Eastern and be the appetizer for Clemson and Notre Dame on Saturday night.

MIKE TIRICO: We’ll be in the booth in South Bend early watching. I’m glad you mentioned that too because I think for all of us, and I obviously haven’t been to England and the Premier League, but you’ve seen what happened there, but in all these other sports just the sacrifice, obviously our crew, our team, we are so appreciative of that, but also the athletes, the coaches, the people who run all of these sports in general, to have, as you say, during a worldwide pandemic, all these championship events still going on and to have them all fall on one weekend, I think it’s a great opportunity to step back as a lot of us are doing, from 30,000 feet, and taking stock of what we have and what we are appreciative of in our country and our lives.

To have all these champions in sports; Notre Dame, Clemson, Brady and Brees, and the last couple of championships of the Premier League and the championship on the line with NASCAR and a couple of drivers who have won the Cup title, and as we’ve said, the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Bob Baffert and the other horses involved, what a great championship weekend this is.

Pete, understanding that you have a lot of people at NBC that you would be coordinating this with, but from your understanding, how will NBC navigate having these high profile sporting events with the prospect of significant breaking political news happening during one of these events?

PETE BEVACQUA: We have talked about that pretty consistently kind of in the lead-up to the election, obviously through Tuesday and then thinking about this weekend and what may or may not happen this weekend. I was actually on a big back-and-forth over the course of last night into this morning with Sam Flood and Fred Gaudelli talking about what changes we may need to make during halftime of Sunday Night Football. Obviously major breaking national news is always of critical importance and we will break in accordingly. The good news and the added benefit we have and maybe a bit of what’s advantageous to us compared to some others who are invested in sports as much as we are is we have MSNBC and CNBC and now we have a 24-hour news portal through Peacock that’s available to, as you heard maybe in our earnings call, over 22 million people, so we’re well covered in that regard. We’ll balance it. A lot of it, we have a lot of experience in terms of people handling those decisions, we’ll break away as needed, we’ll try to minimize any interruptions of these great sporting events, but it’s always just a bit of a balancing act and that very well may occur at some point over the course of this weekend. So timely question for sure.

Pete, with sports returning over the past four or five months what has been your impression of the ratings so far? Are they about where you thought they would be for all sports or slightly down due to the pandemic and just trying to get your views on NFL at mid season with how the Sunday Night Football ratings have performed?

PETE BEVACQUA: It’s all relatively speaking. Sports have continued to perform so really unbelievably well and you think about the power of the NFL and Sunday Night Football. And where we have been the No. 1 show in primetime television for nine years in a row and hopefully we’ll hit the decade mark, we have every expectation that we will this year. I think when you think about sports, you go back to the pandemic and I think back to when I was at the Players Championship in March, left there on a Wednesday and by Friday, the entire sports world had come to a grinding halt and we, like everyone else, were scrambling to put up meaningful content and to search our archives to see what could be of interest and we had the great cooperation of the leagues in doing so. But then when live sports came back, really led by NASCAR and the PGA TOUR, we did what we do best, which is bring live sports to the viewing public at a time when people maybe needed live sports as much or more than ever.

But then when everything started to come back, I think there was a bit of a sense where there were some live sports and so many live sports occurring during times when people weren’t used to it. So we saw that very firsthand knowledge and firsthand experience with the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open being contested always on Father’s Day now to move that into September, people weren’t used to having U.S. Open golf in September and now it was going up against college football and the NFL.

You had the NHL playoffs occurring at a time when they usually didn’t. And the NBA and Major League Baseball. And then with the advent of the college football season, which was stop and go and obviously with two of the Power 5 conferences waiting to start play.

So it’s been a difficult time, I think, for the industry to navigate, but certainly for the viewer to navigate, I think it’s been confusing. I think we’re starting to see a return to normalcy. I think the election was kind of a pivotal moment. We have seen the skyrocketing of cable news ratings. Now that the election is nearing an end I think people will go back to kind of normal consumption patterns. So we think we have weathered the storm, of course it’s been difficult at times, but we feel like we’re coming through this in a good place. We really believe with the NFL schedule, particularly with us having the flex schedule, should be unbelievably strong as we enter into the second half of the season. We think the game we have Sunday night that Cris talked about is going to be so powerful. So we feel good about where we are and now where we’re heading into what I believe will be the busiest two years in the history of NBC Sports. When you think about all of our property partners, Tokyo the summer games in 2021, followed so soon thereafter by Beijing in February and, oh by the way, what do we have right in between those is a Super Bowl in L.A.

So it’s an exciting time, ratings have been challenged at times, but the power of sports and the overall sports performance during this time period continues to be relatively strong.

I have a question for Tony and Cris about the game on Sunday night. Obviously it’s going to be the debut for Antonio Brown with Tom Brady. And Tom Brady seems to have put a lot of energy into his relationship with Antonio Brown last year and this year, inviting him to stay with him and really going to the mat for Antonio Brown. I’m just curious, why do you think Tom Brady is investing so much into Antonio Brown?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I’ll take the first shot at this one. He needs him. There’s no question as you look at this offense, the one missing element, if you think back to all the great New England teams, they always had the Danny Amendola’s, the Julian Edelman’s, that slot receiver who could just get open quickly one-on-one. So you really couldn’t blitz Tom Brady because of those one-on-one assignments in the middle of the field.

Now the Bucs have been trying a little bit of everybody in that slot position. They have had their main receivers — Chris Godwin can do a lot of stuff in there, Mike Evans now has become a little bit of the slot player, which I just wasn’t used to seeing him playing there, and you know what, he’s really good. He’s added almost a tight end kind of element inside there.

But when you get right down to it, if the Bucs are going to win a World Championship, which is what this is all about, right? You don’t bring Tom Brady to town unless you’re thinking Super Bowl. Antonio Brown in that slot, if he is what he used to be, which, who knows, but if he is what he used to be or anything remotely close to it, he could well be that missing piece. He could be the piece that puts them over the top in this offense and honestly, I can’t wait to watch it.

TONY DUNGY: I believe you’re right Cris, I think Tom Brady and the Bucs are thinking playoffs, they’re not thinking this week. They would love to win this game and get that one up on New Orleans, but this is for January when you’re playing those big games and it’s tight and you need that one play to win it, is this a guy who can add that one play at the right time? They’re going to have about eight weeks to get the timing down. We saw Tom and Gronk, we saw Tom and Mike Evans early on in the season kind of misfiring. There will be some misfires with Brown. I thought he was breaking this way, I thought he was going to come out at this angle. But they want that timing to be there in the playoffs.

I know you mentioned Manchester City being in 10th place in your open, but what has surprised you most so far of this season?

REBECCA LOWE: Well, quite a few things. Down to, I think, a lack of fans, it’s really taking the Premier League into a different direction. I think what surprised me most is the affect of no fans on both end of the field. So I have spoken a lot to Tim Howard about this and he assures me that when you’re a defender or a goalkeeper, as he was, the support in the stadium gets on your back and puts you under pressure in a more positive way than if you’re a striker.

So, if you’re a defender, you’re kept on your toes, you’re kept focused by the crowds, so maybe you can see field goals, maybe you’re on your game more.

If you’re a striker and there’s no crowd, if you miss three chances, you’re not getting the crowd on your back. Now you used to have abuse hauled at you if you’re a striker and you missed three in a row. Now you’re not getting that, which means that the confidence level of the strikers are staying high because nobody can bring them down and then they score on the fourth chance, which perhaps beforehand, that never happened. Which is why I think we’re getting so many goals. So I’m kind of surprised at that as a big picture sort of answer to your question, but other than that, I’ve also been surprised at the slow start that so many clubs are making who normally are atop by now. The Manchester City’s, the Manchester United’s, even Arsenal at times, Liverpool themselves they lost 7-2 against Aston Villa. So there are stories in this season’s Premier League — we know it’s a soap opera, we know it’s always been a soap opera and every single week we get served up amazing story lines. This season, with all the added things going on in and around the league, it’s just ratcheted up another notch. And the surprises are coming from the way the goals are being scored, who is scoring them and how many are being scored, which has led to such crazy results at times. But we’re all here for it.

Obviously with the challenge for the pandemic having going from no events, and then events with no fans, now we have some fans. From a production side how hard has it been to integrate the fan back into the show and is it any more difficult now than it was when you guys started the NASCAR up this season, with probably your first events with fans and how — if you want to just kind of take me through how to integrate those shots back in and everything else.

MIKE TIRICO: Before you get going on the NASCAR things, since I’ve been at a bunch of these I’ll jump in on the fan deal, because I’ve seen different parts of it. When I was at Indy for the NASCAR weekend along with IndyCar, there were no fans there. We have done shows from the studio like the Kentucky Derby with no fans. We have done a Saints game with Cris with about 500 people in the Superdome and Tony and have I experienced 10,500 fans at Notre Dame stadium.

So I think each one is different and unique and obviously the fan factor is missing, just from the ambience, from the juice in the building, the excitement. I’ve had more players, more athletes and more sports tell me we have to bring our own energy, we have to bring our own enthusiasm, because the crowd isn’t there. I don’t know if, other than Rebecca’s point about the goals in the Premier League, I don’t know if it’s affecting the performance of the athletes on the field nearly as much, but I do think the environment has impacted going into those games and getting started.

And the last point I’ll make, from a television standpoint, crossing over a bunch of these sports, I think it’s just all unique to the events. When there’s been a crowd at a college football game we have shown them. We have shown the 10,000 at Notre Dame, we have shown the band, the band being there actually added to the ambience, more than any of the other sports, made that missing group of fans seem a bit smaller than it otherwise would be.

I think it’s something we’re going to see for awhile, I think we have all adjusted to it from a production standpoint and I think when the fans do come back, I think you’ll see them celebrated and appreciated even more within parts of the broadcast. So that’s just from the overall perspective, but I know Junior’s been to a bunch of races where there have been fans in the stands at NASCAR and just curious what you’ve seen on that.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, we have had races where there were none and races where there were a select few fans. I think the drivers absolutely prefer having someone in the grandstands to celebrate what they’re seeing and even if it’s just a very small crowd of people to have some kind of reaction. It is the strangest thing for these drivers — and this has all come from drivers telling us this — they work for three and a half hours to win that race and they get out of the car to nothing. It is the strangest feeling for them to climb out of the car right there on the flag stand or the finish line, to get the checkered flag and wave it to nobody.

So while that was obviously all a necessity and we worked through that, when they did get the opportunity to get fans back on the track, no matter how small the number, just any kind of energy off of that crowd is really, really appreciated by the drivers.

Like Mike said, I think it’s really put into perspective just what the fans bring to the event. NASCAR’s always been very appreciative of the fans, but I don’t think beyond this, we could ever take them for granted because it’s completely obvious to all of us what they bring to the event with energy and passion and I believe it does affect the performance or it does affect the vibe and the energy and how the race is played out. And what the drivers are going to do, the decisions they’re going to make and the risks they’re willing to take.

When you have that crowd and those people, you can see them, coming off the corner, when you take the lead, and fans are on their feet cheering that moment, in that race, when that’s missing, it certainly has to affect the drivers quite a bit.

Tom Brady has been an incredible bright spot as far as TV ratings this year. As Pete said, some TV ratings have been down, but Brady’s Bucs have really performed great in terms of TV numbers. Why do you think that Tom and the Bucs are such a compelling TV story this year?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I think you know it’s coming to an end, you know. I think, you know, when I watch him play right now, that’s not what pops through my head. Like some people at the end of their career you go, oh, boy, okay, let’s, this may well be the last time I see this guy play.

We had a conversation last night and I, if you just took it off of the tape that I’ve watched in the last three or four weeks here, you would think he legitimately could go to 44, 45, 46 years old. If he chooses to retire at this point, it will not be based on what you see on tape from Tom Brady. And yet in your brain you’re going, here’s a guy that’s won six Super Bowls and he’s in his 40s, is this the last time I’m going to see him play? But I also think there’s that little bit of a thing and we all knew it was going to come — was it Belichick or was it Brady? Right? And you knew it was going to be a part of the discussion. No matter which way this thing went.

And to see Tom Brady go down there, lose opening day against the Saints, and just sort of the slow progression of what this offense is beginning to look like under Tom Brady, it’s starting to look a heck of a lot more like what he was doing in New England and now I think the excitement of what could be — like they asked me to pick top-5 and all that sort of stuff, but it’s not where they are today — but when you see the progression of what this team is doing and what it could be, at the end of the season and throw Antonio Brown into the mix, it’s pretty darn interesting at that point.

MIKE TIRICO: I’ll just make it simple here. Most scrutinized position in all of sports, greatest champion at that position, did it in one place for so long, still at a high level and going to do it somewhere else. It’s taking Bruce Springsteen away from the E Street Band and moving him to Maroon 5, like all of a sudden Maroon 5 is like, oh, my God, are you serious? You know, it’s just that you’re taking greatness and you’re moving it somewhere else and you want to see, is it him, was it where he was, and I want to see if he can go win another one somewhere else.

So the fact that everybody’s familiar with him, the fact that the opponents have kind of lined up pretty well given their schedule this year, everybody wants to go, oh, oh, it’s Brady playing against Rogers, yeah, I want to see that. Oh, it’s Brady going to play against the Raiders, which should have been a Sunday night game, now it’s Brady against the Giants, it’s Brees the second time, every time he plays — and by the way, in a couple weeks there’s a Mahomes game — there’s just something magical about him and you can’t say that about many athletes in any sport, especially the fact that he’s doing it here at the back end of his career, with something to prove, and that pick 199, sixth round chip still on his shoulder. I think that’s why it’s must see TV every time he gets on the field.

And no disrespect to Maroon 5 fans, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to knock them like that. (Laughing.)

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: Maroon 5?

MIKE TIRICO: I know. I don’t know why I picked that (laughing.)

NFL big picture, you look at the race this year — Saints, Bucs, Seahawks, Steelers, Chiefs, Ravens — they have all made a trade or signed a guy to help shore things up. Are you guys noticing maybe more teams kind of trying to keep up with the Jones’ near the trade deadline and make some of these splashy moves that these franchises maybe aren’t all that known for?

TONY DUNGY: Well I personally don’t think it’s keeping up with the Jones’, I think what you’re seeing is there aren’t complete teams. Everybody’s got holes. And everybody’s gone through seven, eight weeks and saying, I really want to make a playoff run, Tampa, I need another big play receiver. I need a pass rusher in Seattle. I need this, I need that. And it’s wide open.

So it’s not like, hey, we’re sitting here and we can’t catch some of these other teams, but I think teams realize what they need and they’re going out to get it to try to make this run. So that’s the one thing I’ve noticed, that every team you look at, no matter how well they’re playing you say, boy, there’s some holes here. They would be great except for this. And I think those teams are trying to fix that coming down the stretch.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I think you have a couple of things to talk about. One is you have older quarterbacks — Brady, Brees, Roethlisberger won’t appreciate me putting him in that category — but those kind of guys, and you realize that that window’s a little bit short, right? You don’t know how many more swings at the plate you get with that high-quality player at that position.

And then you also have, which we have never really had before, the other side of that spectrum, which are these young players on those rookie contracts lake a Lamar Jackson, where they don’t take up very much cap and you can afford to take a couple of big swings for a defensive player or make a trade or take on some salary that maybe you wouldn’t have been willing to do otherwise.

But I’ll say this, if you’re from Pittsburgh, that was two of the most impressive physical performances back-to-back that I’ve seen from what they did. Watching them in Tennessee, I was like these two teams — Tennessee and Pittsburgh — no way they’re coming back a week later and being able to play to that level. They were trying to kill each other out there.

And it ended up being true of Tennessee, they got beat in Cincinnati. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, went to Baltimore, a game every bit as physical, we know the rivalry, we know the intensity of that thing, and to go in there and pull off that one as well? To me that jumped Pittsburgh to another level in my mind. And I still don’t think that their offense is close to where they’re going to be at the end of this thing, I just don’t.

MIKE TIRICO: And I’ll just chime in quick that I think people are quicker to hit the reset button in the NFL. They’re quicker to cut losses, teams are also trying to add, as you say, once they see they’re in a window where they’re going to have a chance, I think they’re willing to add pieces. It’s almost, it’s not where baseball used to be at the trade deadline, but it’s much more of that mentality than ever. The fascinating part of that is with the salary cap that will go down next year, how is that impacting some of these decisions? And there’s not a lot of tolerance to sit there in the middle ground. If you’re not building around a young quarterback and a new head coach, chances are you’re selling off assets to be in position to draft in the top 10 to get one of those elite quarterbacks or young quarterbacks and start a rebuild quickly. Because we’re seeing Arizona, in a couple of years, has turned themselves into a 5-2 team with a chance to go 6-2 here against Miami this week. So I think that the reset button has come quicker for teams because the chance to get it turned around seems to be quicker than it was five or 10 years ago. So I think that’s part of the willingness on the backend where, I have assets, I don’t think I’m a playoff team, let me sell off this asset to see if I can get to the top of the draft line a little bit sooner.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: And those quarterback assets in college football coming up in this year’s draft are pretty amazing.

MIKE TIRICO: Exactly.

REMINDER TIRICO, COLLINSWORTH, DUNGY, EARNHARDT JR., LOWE & OLCZYK ON CONFERENCE CALL TODAY AT NOON ET, AHEAD OF NBC SPORTS’ “BIG EVENT WEEKEND”

November 5, 2020 By admin

NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua Joins On-Air Team to Discuss Major Events Across NBC Sports Platforms this Weekend:

Breeders’ Cup Classic, Sat. Nov. 7 at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC
#1 Clemson at #4 Notre Dame, Sat. Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC
Manchester City v. Liverpool, Sun. Nov. 8 at 11:30 a.m. ET on Peacock Premium
NASCAR Cup Series Championship, Sun. Nov. 8 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC
Tom Brady & Buccaneers Host Drew Brees & Saints, Sun. Nov. 8 at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC

Dial 334-777-6978 to Participate

STAMFORD, Conn. – Nov. 5, 2020 – Ahead of a huge weekend of high-profile sporting events across NBC Sports platforms, on-air commentators and analysts will preview the action in a special multi-sport media conference call today at Noon ET, and will be joined by NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua.

Media interested in participating should call 334-777-6978; Passcode: 6911436.

WHO:

Pete Bevacqua – Chairman, NBC Sports Group

Mike Tirico – Play-by-play, Notre Dame Football; Host, Football Night in America

Cris Collinsworth – Analyst, Sunday Night Football

Tony Dungy – Analyst, Notre Dame Football; Analyst, Football Night in America

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – Analyst, NASCAR

Rebecca Lowe – Host, Premier League

Eddie Olczyk – Handicapper, Horse Racing

WHAT:

Special conference call to discuss:

Breeders’ Cup Classic, Sat. Nov. 7 at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC
#1 Clemson at #4 Notre Dame, Sat. Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC
Manchester City v. Liverpool, Sun. Nov. 8 at 11:30 a.m. ET on Peacock Premium
NASCAR Cup Series Championship, Sun. Nov. 8 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC
Tom Brady & Buccaneers Host Drew Brees & Saints, Sun. Nov. 8 at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC

WHEN: Today, November 5 – at Noon ET

NUMBER: 334-777-6978

PASSCODE: 6911436

— NBC SPORTS —