Transformation from Driver to Announcer

First, we'll start out with a little story time:

Growing up, my dad wasn’t into the typical “dad” sports. Our television normally wasn’t tuned in for football or basketball, yet, it religiously stayed on the sports channel come Sunday when Nascar was on. My love for the sport began to grow at a young age, I still have my first Jeff Gordon shirt I got when I was only four.

My younger self didn’t really understand why people always asked if I could like another driver. Then as I got older I began to realize there were a lot of Jeff Gordon haters out there, they would make fun of how he spoke, and especially how he drove a rainbow car. There was some turning point where I began to argue back with people, being younger I would fervently speak about how much I loved his car and how he won, but growing up I began to respect what he brought to the Nascar medium. He drove with such passion and emotion, I enjoyed how he would be willing to fight about something that had happen. I was able to see him start a family and win a good number of races - but I knew it had to come to an end.

The 2015 season was the last season for Jeff. There had been a point where I didn’t have time to watch the races once I began my junior year in high school, but my dad would update me every Sunday and once I came to Appalachian State he called every Sunday last year to keep me in the circle. Especially since my favorite driver would be retiring. “Rainbow boy did okay.” “Ole whiny wrecked..” “Well, your Jeffy won finally.” The farther into the season we got the more my dad changed towards Jeff Gordon. It’s cliche, but I feel a lot of people who weren’t fans of Jeff became fans of him his last season. The focus was on one of the greatest drivers and how much he had accomplished. People began to see the respect I had felt for him from the beginning.

I've blogged before on the Denver Bronco's players on social media, but with Jeff Gordon I was able to watch as his social media transitioned from being a driver to being a broadcaster for Nascar.

I'm going to focus more on Instagram since today we watched the 52 tips for having a good Instagram.

As a driver, he posted pictures of his family, his car, his crew, and the trophies. Mostly they focused on the car. He announced where the race was and how the car was handling. Short and sweet. Rarely containing hashtags and if he did have hashtags it was one or two: #NASCAR #Team24 and his last season #24Ever was added. As for tagging usually he stuck with tagging @TeamHendrick @AxaltaRacing @TeamChevy and then the track they were racing at that weekend's Instagram account.

Now, as an announcer Jeff has seemed to have maybe gotten a social media team. He posts photos at the prime times of the day and continuously uses the hashtags #NASCAR #TeamJG and he tags @NASCARONFOX and the racetracks the race will be held at: for example @PoconoRaceway. He promotes larger things of Nascar - such as the Cars 3 movie a lot of the racers (old and new) were voice actors for and like the video today said, promoting a bigger brand (Disney and Pixar) brings you more views and internet traffic.

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EXTRA (it's just Jessie getting salty with another sports writer - enjoy)

“With all of these coverage plans released, there is no doubt that hiring Jeff Gordon for the network is the major headliner. My only concern is what Gordon will add to the broadcast that Darrell Waltrip didn’t provide already. With a commentary team of Joy, Waltrip and McReynolds, you had someone in the booth who could give analysis from a driver perspective and a crew chief perspective. Now, there will be two drivers in the booth. Like I said, McReynolds is still going to be a big part of the broadcast team, so FOX will still have that crew chief perspective albeit in a likely somewhat reduced capacity. And considering that there are other drivers and crew chiefs who are part of the broadcast, this move probably isn’t that big of a deal on the broadcast as a whole.” Phillip Bupp, staff writer for Awful Announcing, wrote.

Anger is my first reaction. Then I decided I better work on my argument. So, here you go Bupp.

First off Eric Shanks, President, COO and Executive Producer of FOX Sports seemed very excited to add Jeff Gordon. “In 2016, we have the unique opportunity to take a four-time champion, Jeff Gordon, directly from the Chase to the booth, pairing him with Darrell Waltrip to offer fans seven championships’ worth of expertise.” Shanks commented, then added “Led by Mike Joy, one of the sport’s most talented play-by-play announcers ever, there is a ton of enthusiasm building around our 2016 talent lineup.” There you have it, Jeff Gordon is bringing his expert knowledge of the sport into the booth, the perspective of a driver. Yes, they already have the down to earth Darrell Waltrip, but Darrell announced his retirement in 1999, meaning he hasn’t experienced the racing in the 2000’s. There have been almost twenty years of rule changes, track and car modifications that wasn’t implemented when he was a driver. Jeff brings that to the table, he knows the new rules and modifications like the back of his hand, he adds a newer perspective to the broadcasting booth.

I honestly think this move was a huge deal for the broadcasting part of Nascar as a whole. Jeff brings a fresher vision of the sport. He knows what those drivers are experiencing and he knows them personally. These tracks are familiar to him and he can predict how drivers are going to react, he knows what each drivers strength and weaknesses are too. He’ll give the perspective from inside the car, he knows what those drivers are going through and he’ll know exactly how to tell the audience what is going on and he’s only going to get better since he’s learning from some of the best - right Phillip?

There you have it, Jeff Gordon is going to continue his impressive legacy by broadcasting something that he has loved and done for a good part of his life. I’m proud of how well he handled fitting into the broadcasting world, he fit in perfectly and I’m excited to hear his commentary throughout this season and many more to come.