"Big Bill Sr. never competed with the companies that sponsored his sport's cars. He saw them as partners, and told his children that you didn't take food off a partner's plate."
Shaun Assael, WIDE OPEN: Days And Nights On The NASCAR Tour
NASCAR may now have begun going too far. Of course one can make the case that it crossed that Rubicon years ago, but now sponsors of racecars are under attack from the sanctioning body. It is now known that NASCAR has tried to strongarm at least one big-name sponsor into sponsoring a race, contingency award, and/or other action on top of what was already purchased, a combined cost that has driven some sponsors (as well as NBC Sports) out of the game altogether - as Athlon Sports put it before the season, "It made no sense for NBC to continue losing dollars, and the fault lies with NASCAR for demanding astronomical rights fees." By extension this includes sponsors directly priced out of the game by NASCAR "asking" them to spend money on areas they didn't want to go to.
Then there is NASCAR's Drive For Diversity, which is beginning to show the favoritism universal to all such "diversity" boondoggles when Juan Monotya was allowed to run at Darlington in a Goodyear tire test even though he wasn't scheduled for that test; the excuse that he has yet to run there in a Winston Cup race applies to David Ragan, Paul Menard, and the other rookies of this season, but then they're not "the chosen one" for the Drive For Diversity.
Now NASCAR is in trouble on two sponsor fronts. First it strongarmed Robby Gordon into yanking Motorola sponsorship decals from his car, and now it faces a lawsuit by AT&T over restrictions placed on its Cingular wireless logos on Jeff Burton's Chevrolet. More than one observor is noting the blatant absurdity of NASCAR's direct attack on some sponsors, and one need recall the flap that erupted over Kevin Harvick's Shell Oil sponsorship at the Daytona 500, a flap instigated by series sponsor Sunoco.
Such bullying crosses another line that the sport for so long recognized could not afford to be crossed, but which the Brian France administration more and more refuses to recognize. Clearly Brian France cannot be trusted with the sanctioning body anymore, and bullying of sponsors is all the reason one needs to fight back against him.
5 comments:
From Steven Covey...
"Always begin with the end in mind"!
FranceCar needs to embrace all these sponsors!
"Always begin with the end in mind."
Darn, why didn't I put it that way?
You make a good point about working with sponsors Monkeesfan.
Unfortunately, NASCAR has become a victim of it's momentum of growth and what appears to be greed as they increase sponsorship fees, as they are cranking up the cost of sponsoring the Busch series for who ever may take them up on that endeavor.
And incidentally, this article seems to be in good timing with my reply to Poole's newest posting over at http://turn-lane.blogspot.com/
-Bruce
Bruce, timing is everything. ;-)
BTW, I added a couple of updates into the post - check them out.
Aside from the corporate bullying, I think it is a good thing that NASCAR is at least trying to make a push for diversity. Honestly, do many people think NASCAR diversity when they think of the sanctioning body? We all know that the end game is to get more money from sponsors and fans by increasing diversity, but at least they are making the effort (an effort that many less forward minded companies are not making) to promote diversity in their workplace.
Post a Comment