Fox won praise from NASCAR fans for using a split screen during its final commercial break of Sunday’s race at Dover.
It’s the first time the network has done that during a NASCAR broadcast, although TNT does it during its broadcast of the July race at Daytona.
“At this point, the fan feedback we’ve seen via social media has been very positive,” Fox spokesman Lou D’Ermilio said.
D’Ermilio said the idea to use a split screen was discussed last week, but became doable only when advertisers Sprint, FedEx and Pizza Hut agreed to share their screen time with race coverage. Sprint is the title sponsor of NASCAR’s top series, and FedEx was the title sponsor of Sunday’s race.
“The idea resurfaced earlier this week and after some discussion it was decided we would experiment with it if we could get enough advertisers to go along with it,” he said. “Three ardent NASCAR on Fox supporters, Sprint, Pizza Hut and FedEx, all agreed to work with us with the spots they planned to run in the race’s final break.”
Tim Considine, director of sports marketing for Sprint, said the sponsor will see how Fox wants to proceed.
“We were glad we could support this test. We’ve heard that fans have reacted positively, which is great,” Considine said. “We’ll be interested to hear from our partners at Fox as to the results of the test.”
NASCAR fans have clamoured for years for split-screen coverage during commercial breaks, to no avail. ESPN was the first network to use split screens, doing so at IndyCar broadcasts in 2005.
