NASCAR, one of the richest sports, is looking for new ways to generate revenue with creative sponsorship. Looking beyond the sponsorship of cars and their drivers, NASCAR now has track / race name sponsorship. The newest sponsorship is from ServiceMaster Clean in the form of a sponsored yellow flag (yellow flags are used to tell drivers there is a hazard on the race track) in addition when the hazard (which could be trash or an accident on the track) needs to be cleaned up, yellow ServiceMaster Clean cars/trucks will come out to cleanup. This type of sponsorship is a first for NASCAR and signals a new thinking in out to generate revenue. Not only will these types of creative sponsorship help NASCAR remain competitive in tight economic times but allow for new sponsors to display their products to NASCAR fans. Exposing fans to products they made not be aware of will allow for smaller companies which may not be able to afford the costs of full car/team sponsorship to get their products notice by race watching public.
References:
Website: NHLOutsider - Creativity Key In Securing Newest NASCAR Sponsorship For Yellow Flag Cautions: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/111717-creativity-key-in-securing-newest-nascar-sponsorship-for-yellow-flag-cautions
Photos: Sportztoday.com - NASCAR: http://www.sportztoday.com/nascar/
Many companies large and small pay to advertise on race vehicles in the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Craftsman Truck series. This sponsorship money is the funding the teams use to build new cars, pay the bills and employees, and develop new technology to make the cars competitive and in the spotlight each week. Many large companies also have spent large amounts of advertising dollars for naming rights of race tracks such as Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the wake of the current financial crisis many teams are dealing with reduced sponsorship money or are having trouble keeping main sponsorship for their existing multi-car teams. Both Chrysler Corporation and Chevrolet are going through bankruptcy reorganization and are renegotiating many current sponsorship payouts with teams or have cut complete funding from existing and future manufacturer sponsored teams. Lowe’s recently announced that they would not renew their naming rights for the Charlotte race track in 2010. At the beginning of this race year, NASCAR was unsure if they would have enough cars to fill the starting grids of many races. Few tracks have sold out their seating tickets and many claim the economic crunch on weekly attendance. Even so, many NASCAR fans continue to be loyal to their favorite sponsor brands and continue to purchase products even if they don’t attend the races. The brightly colored art designs and images of manufacturers catch the eye of society even at speeds up to 200 MPH, and sell the product. Advertising on race cars surely does help to sell products even though the race track and drivers are trying to survive through these hard financial times. I agree that smaller companies now have an edge in advertising because there are more teams looking at multiple small sponsorships rather than primary sponsorship from one large corporation. When long time race sponsor Winston cigarettes left NASCAR, many articles spoke of the downturn of the stockcar sport. But there are many other large companies such as Sprint, who took over as the main sponsor of NASCAR, looking for a good value for their advertising dollar. NASCAR has been through tough economic times before and has survived to become the giant that it is today and will be around for a long time for companies large and small to have an avenue to advertise their products.
ReplyDeletewww.SCENEDAILY.com