IRL deal drops ESPN, adds Versus

Oh great, now Tony George is making even worse decisions than CART. The VS channel is only on Comcast. Viewership will plunge next year which will drag down sponsorships. This is a death spiral. I bet NASCAR prevented ABC from offering a package to IndyCar. This is what happens when you have NASCAR on every channel. Next year there will be more F1 on the major networks than IndyCar. This is terrible news.

At least they should have put everything on Speed. It goes better than vs. for christ sake. Now this series will really be the invisible racing league........ I wish champ car where still around.

Versus is shown nationwide, but i fell like this is a step down for the IRL.

Yes it's a little bit of step down but I'm going to say it's a good thing, Versus is no spikeTV, TG is no CART, Versus is growing plus it's really where Indycar needs to be now because they are not a nationwide big sporting category at the moment unfortunately, but it's true. If NHL which is apparently a lot bigger than IRL can be broadcast on Versus why can't Indycar? Plus, Versus will be providing much better coverage than ESPN could, what about a full 3 hours coverage plus extended pre race show, what about one hour of preview every Saturday or Friday on race weekend, or what about a better coverage of Indy Lights series, I mean, yes Versus is smaller than ESPN, but its opportunities are a lot bigger. While I don't have inside details so I can't rant more about it, it's so pathetic to immediately blame Indycar or even TG without doing any sort of research or thinking!

Death of IndyCar wrote:

The VS channel is only on Comcast.

I've got Bright House and Versus is on my standard digital cable package. Just like ESPN and it's family of networks.

At least I wont have to switch to ESPN Classic to watch the start of the race because ladies college softball is running overtime.