NBC Sports: We hired Dale Earnhardt Jr. 'to be himself' on TV broadcasts
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was hired to be Dale Earnhardt Jr. when he begins his full-time career as a broadcaster in 2018, NBC Sports executive producer and president of production Sam Flood said Monday.
That made him an ideal fit for what the driver called “probably my first real job in 20 years” following his retirement as a full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver after this season.
“We hired this person to be himself,” Flood said in a national teleconference. “We want Dale to be Dale and we don’t want him to change at all. We just want to give him some tricks to make it comfortable on television. So, when a specific replay is coming up or he wants a specific replay, he can communicate properly to make sure what he’s looking at is what the truck’s looking at. I think that’s the part of the business that’s important for Dale to learn, and how that communication goes back and forth.
“But the most important thing is his voice. We didn’t hire him to turn him into an announcer. We hired him to be himself and we’ve talked about that, because that’s the most valuable thing he has.”
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Flood equated the role of the 14-time NASCAR most popular driver with that of football analysts Cris Collinsworth — “a passionate guy who tells the stories the way he wants to” — and Tony Dungy — a former coach that NBC “didn’t ask to be loud and bombastic.” Flood said Earnhardt's ability to connect could “get people more engaged and realize how special it is to be a NASCAR fan.”
Earnhardt said he was stunned how excited he was after some broadcasting stints last year while recovering from a concussion that cost him the second half of the 36-race season.
Earnhardt said he doesn’t believe his relationship with drivers will change once he becomes a full-time broadcaster, partly because he said he understands how much relationships with broadcast crews matter to competitors. From discussing the matter with new co-worker and former driver Jeff Burton, he expects the transition to be “seamless.”
“That relationship does mean a lot to the drivers, so having been on both sides of that or soon to be on both sides of that I think I’ll have a natural way of handling it,” Earnhardt said.
Earnhardt could be employed all around NBC’s properties, with the NFL, Olympics and, jokingly, the Tour de France mentioned as possible assignments on Monday.
“This is the very beginning of this partnership,” Earnhardt said. “I’m going to follow Sam’s lead to be as prepared as I can to do the job he wants me to do.”
NBC began a 10-year deal with NASCAR in 2015 to broadcast the final 20 Cup races each season through 2024. The races are split between NBC and NBC Sports Network. Fox and its Fox Sports 1 affiliate broadcast the first half of the Cup season.
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