You Asked For It! ~ "Where Have All The Sponsors Gone?"
4/17/2014
PattyKay Lilley
I bid
you welcome gentle readers, to an offering that will serve as somewhat of a
sequel to our last discussion, which had to do with fannies
rather than sponsors. Several of you brought the sponsor angle into play and I
promised you there would be more to come. Casting about for a place to start, I
recalled one of what I now refer to as my "prediction columns", a
series of articles dedicated to what I saw as the outcome of all the changes
brought about by the new regime in 2004. The inspiration for this one appeared
on the pages of Insider Racing News on March 29, 2004, and was entitled
"Ninety Miles an Hour Down a Dead End Street."
This is by no means that column, but the title and lyrics, taken from a very
old Hank Snow song, remain pertinent and so warranted explanation. We'll return
to that thought in just a bit, but first, a word from our sponsors... is that
word "Good-bye?"
For the
first fifty or more years of its existence, NASCAR was always able to brag
about the fact that its fans were the most brand-loyal fans to be found in any sport in the
world. If a company put its name on the hood of a
racecar, NASCAR fans selected that company’s product over any other for the
simple reason that the company was a NASCAR sponsor. It was just that simple.
There was a family atmosphere in the sport and fans felt that in patronizing a
sponsor, they were actually helping a family member to get ahead in the world.
It’s funny, but I don’t recall there ever being a sponsor crisis throughout
those years.
So what
has changed? Well, stock car racing is no longer presented as a down-home
southeastern sport; it’s as if one could hear Horace Greeley saying, “Go west
young man, go west!” So westward we went, to the new
super palaces of racing that sprung up as if they were giving them away free on
street corners. Everywhere you looked, from the tracks to the television, it
was all about the “show”, but take a close look toward whom that show was
geared.
Somewhere,
someone in a suit decided that stock car racing should be presented in a manner
that was attractive to more young people, and seasoned fans began muting their
TVs and reaching for their radios; of course, some were just reaching for a
fishing pole or a garden trowel and leaving the TV off completely. This would
be throughout the era many refer to as "Vanilla" or more correctly,
"PC." Drivers were forbidden to have thoughts of their own or, Heaven
help us, personalities. They were expected to behave in the best interest of
the sponsor at any and all times. They had no private lives, and could barely
go to the bathroom without a microphone and/or camera there to record. Fans
were turned off and quite frankly, so were many of the drivers.
“Oh”,
said NASCAR, “but look at how many seats we’re filling at all the pretty new
tracks.” Yes, for the moment, there were jeans sitting in those seats, but
according to plan, those jeans were no longer being worn by Billy Bob and Betty
Jo. The overwhelming majority of those over-priced seats were being filled at
first by people with "Today" names like Madison, Ashley, Trey or
Jamie; after all, they fit the “image.”
Now,
hold your fire; it is not my intention to pick on or alienate the younger
generation. Given enough time, you will be where I am and the cycle will
continue ad infinitum. The point that I’m making is that those younguns were
raised in the economy of the day, where most purchases tend to be made at
discount stores big enough to house the population of Delaware. Shopping has
become a game, and to win the game, you have to find and purchase, the cheapest
item in every category. Brand loyalty? What’s that?
If you
were a company intent on getting the most bang for your advertising buck, you
might find a pastime aimed solely at the youth movement not to your liking,
especially if your product is of high quality and not readily available in the
giant “Marts.”
In the
past few years, we’ve seen an alarming number of large corporations take their
leave of NASCAR’s Cup division in favor of some other marketing strategy. Gone from the hoods are names such as UPS,
Crown Royal, Office Depot, Sirius Satellite Radio, Coors, Harrah’s Casinos,
CITGO, Grainger, Raybestos Brakes, Georgia Pacific, Tide, BB&T, Dish
Network, Stanley, Red Bull, Exide Batteries and of course, AT&T, Verizon
and Alltel, for reasons of sponsor conflict with the current Series Sponsor.
Disclaimer: Yes, I realize that a
few of those might be involved in sponsorship of NASCAR directly, but that does
absolutely nothing for the individual team, large or small, that no longer
enjoys that sponsor support. In Nationwide, the current sponsor of the second-tier
series, that apparently will go the other way. Their
series sponsorship is done at the end of this year, and I understand they will
revert to either primary or associate sponsorship on a team to be named later. If
true, then Bravo Nationwide! (Please see addendum below)
Is it
possible that those companies, along with so many others that have moved on,
saw something in their bottom lines that warned them this particular form of
advertising was no longer working the way that it used to? Have the changes in the targeted demographics
contributed to the decline in interested sponsors because there is no longer
sufficient return to justify the expenditure?
It goes
without saying that the cost of the sport in any context has skyrocketed to a
point that even long-time sponsors have been forced to cut back to part-time or
Associate sponsorship. In this category you can
include DuPont, STP, Interstate Batteries, M&Ms, Lowes, Home Depot, Shell,
Time Warner and just about any other sponsor on track today. That can be
attributed in part to the "economy", but much of the blame has to be
shared by promotion of "the show."
When the
"New networks" were truly new, back in 2001, they brought with them
an attitude not before seen in our sport. It was no longer enough that an
advertiser paid a NASCAR team to carry its name on the hood. Now, it was deemed
necessary that to receive vocal mention, that
advertiser had to pay the broadcast network as well. So it was that small teams
found themselves totally ignored because they lacked the funds to pay twice for
the same thing.
One
example that stands out clearly in my mind was the car from BAM Motorsports,
owned by Beth Ann Morgenthau and driven by Kenny Schrader. The sponsor at the
time was Schwan's Foods. Schwan's was and I believe still is, a home delivery
service of perishable foods, neither large nor rich. Where just a year earlier,
Bob, Ned and Benny had identified that same car as "Ken Schrader's Schwans car", it now became "The yellow
car." Just that; nothing more. That even extended
to race sponsorship. Atlanta had sponsorship for their spring race that year
from Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, and it became painfully obvious that
Cracker Barrel felt that paying once was sufficient. The race aired as
"presented by" some other sponsor with more funds, and though Cracker
Barrel was the Official Race Sponsor, their name was never spoken. Do you
suppose they ever sponsored another NASCAR race?
After
about a year of that, the fans had had more than enough and NASCAR and the
networks had a come to Jesus meeting about how things were done in NASCAR. That
seemed to be the end of the practice, but political correctness and fear of
"offending" someone or anyone, is alive and well in NASCAR and the
FOX network. Last year, Texas Motor Speedway signed as race sponsor for their
spring race, the National Rifle Association. This scribe sees absolutely
nothing wrong or amiss in that. If NRA wants to pay that much to let folks know
what they're all about, more power to them.
FOX,
however, became very skittish and held any mention of NRA to the very minimum
within contractual agreement. The letters NRA were heard so seldom and passed
over so quickly that no one not knowing beforehand would ever have recognized
that organization as the race sponsor. I will only say here that in my younger
days, I shot competitively and was a dues paying
member of the NRA for many years. Oh, and yes, I was very good and carry an NRA
ranking of Master. Much like Cracker Barrel, do you see sponsorship from NRA
returning? Can we really afford to throw away sponsors to suit FOX's PC
policies? I thought they were the guys that are supposed to be "Fair and
balanced."
I think
it’s just possible that the “show” has run afoul of that old “Law of unintended
consequences.” While NASCAR and Sprint were busy dressing up the sport and
striving to polish its “image”, they succeeded not only in driving away many of
the old-school fans, but many of the high dollar sponsors as well. That
couldn't work forever folks, so today we see an ever-increasing number of empty
seats in those once sold out palaces of racing.
The
decline has been gradual, and has been continually denied... or covered up by
deceptive comparisons to only the past year and not the prosperous times that
went before. Then as a last ditch effort, NASCAR simply stopped issuing
attendance figures altogether. Last
year, there was a beautification
program at several tracks that included widening the seats... for greater fan
comfort, of course. Really? It couldn't have been to
lend the appearance of more folks than were actually attending, could it? Autoclub Speedway proudly proclaimed their race a couple
weeks back to be a "sellout." What they forgot to include were some
26,000 seats that were there last year but not this year. Progress?
Not really.
And
those fannies that aren't in the seats now, whose
fannies are they? Why, the folks with names like Trey and Jamie, whose
fast-paced generation soon grew tired of sitting still and moved on to whatever
the next big interest of youth might be, along with the older folks that simply
grew weary of changes made for the sake of change alone and moved on with a
life away from the tracks. Not much in the way of brand loyalty to be found in
either one of those camps, and that's not a good thing for any sport.
I am not
an economist, but I believe I possess more than a modicum of something called
common sense and have the ability to apply basic logic and follow it to a
conclusion. No one will argue the fact that within NASCAR, it is all about the
money, and that no doubt applies to sponsors as well as the big brass in
Daytona. Just follow the money trail folks.
If
sponsors and their corporate pencil pushers have figured out that the bottom
line is dropping and no longer justifies the massive advertising budgets
demanded in NASCAR, they are going to rescind that sponsorship, and in many
cases have already done so. It’s not just the economy, as some suggest; it’s
the bottom line. If the fans do not support the sponsors, then there is little
reason for the sponsors to support the sport... or the "business" as
I am so often told to call it these days. Here's a hint; sponsors already have
a business... their own. Don't you think they'd prefer to sponsor a sport
instead of another business?
And now,
back to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress...
As
stated in the beginning, this old NASCAR fan has always been an avid fan of
“Classic Country” music also (Didn’t ya just know that?) and many years ago,
Hank Snow recorded a song whose lyrics might well describe the situation that
now prevails. The song was originally about a love affair, but it’s not much of
a stretch to apply the logic to NASCAR racing today.
“Warning signs are flashing by us
but we pay no heed;
‘Stead of slowing down the pace,
we keep picking up the speed.
Disaster’s gettin’
closer every time we meet,
Goin’ 90 miles an hour down a dead end street.”
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~ PattyKay
The
following is a list of the Official Whatevers of
NASCAR for 2014. Its only purpose here is for you to understand how much the
Mother Ship skims off the top of funds that could, and used to go to teams.
Please note all the familiar names. Conversely, if you'd prefer to see them
prettily displayed as icons on the pages of nascar.com, you
may just click here.
Some Species Eat Their Young!
2014
NASCAR Official Partners
3M (Official
Partner: Automotive Appearance Products)
5.11 Tactical (Official Tactical Apparel & Gear)
ACORE (An Official NASCAR Green Partner: Renewable Energy)
Affinity Road & Travel LLC-Good Sam (Official Partner: Roadside Assistance)
Bank of America (Official Bank)
Camping World (Official Outdoor and RV Retail Partner)
Canadian Tire (Official Automotive Retailer)
Chevrolet (Official: Automobiles)
Coca-Cola (Official Non-Alcoholic Beverage, Official Soft Drink, Official Sport
Drink, Official Energy Drink)
Coors Light (Official Beer)
DRIVE4COPD (Official Health Initiative)
Exide (Official Auto Batteries)
FDP Friction Science (Official Brakes)
Featherlite Coaches (Official Trailer)
Featherlite Trailers (Official Trailer)
Ford (Official Partner: Automobiles)
Freescale (Official Automotive Semiconductors)
Freightliner (Official Big Rig, Official Hauler)
Goodyear (Official Tire)
Green Earth Technologies (An Official NASCAR Green Partner)
Growth Energy (Official Partner: American Corn-Based Ethanol)
Hewlett-Packard (An Official Technology Partner)
K&N (Official Partner: NASCAR K&N Pro Series)
Mars (Official Chocolate, Official Chocolate Bar)
McLaren Electronics Systems (Official Engine Control Unit Supplier)
Mobil 1 (Official Partner: Lubricant, Motor Oil, Gear Lube, Automotive Grease)
Mondelez [Kraft] (Official Cookies and Crackers)
National Corn Growers Association (Official Partner: Promoting the
Interest of Corn Growers)
Nationwide Insurance (Official Auto, Home and Life Insurance)
New Holland (Official Partner: Agricultural Equipment)
Prevost (Official Luxury Motorcoach)
Safety-Kleen (Official Supplier: Automotive Waste Removal)
Sherwin Williams (Official Paint of NASCAR)
SIRIUS XM Radio (Official Satellite Radio Partner)
Sprint (Official Series Sponsor: Telecommunications)
Sunoco (Official Fuel and Official Convenience Store)
Toyota (Official Partner: Automobiles)
UPS (Official Delivery Service)
UTI (Official Partner: Automotive Education)
Visa (Official Card)
Whelen (Official Partner: Series Sponsor, Safety Lighting)
2014 NASCAR Automotive Performance Partners
Auto Meter (NASCAR Performance:
Instrumentation and Gauges)
Autolite (NASCAR Performance: Spark Plugs)
Bosch (NASCAR Performance: Oxygen Sensors)
Cometic (NASCAR Performance: Gaskets and
Cylinder Sleeves)
Comp Cams (NASCAR Performance: Automotive Cam Shafts)
Eaton (Official NASCAR Green Partner: Electric Vehicle Chargers)
Edelbrock (NASCAR Performance: Intake Manifolds)
Federal Mogul/Moog (NASCAR Performance: Chassis Parts)
Flowmaster (NASCAR Performance: Mufflers &
Exhaust Systems)
Holley (NASCAR Performance: Automotive Carburetors & Throttle Bodies)
JEGS (NASCAR Performance: Online Automotive Performance Warehouse)
Liberty Tire Recycling (Official NASCAR Green Partner: Rubberized Mulch,
Asphalt & Alternative Fuels)
Lincoln Electric (NASCAR Partner: Welders, Welding Helmets and Supporting
Equipment)
Mahle (NASCAR Performance: Automotive Engine
Bearings)
Mechanix Wear (NASCAR Officially Licensed:
Gloves)
Midtronics (NASCAR Performance: Battery Testers)
Schumacher (NASCAR Performance: Battery Chargers, Jump Start/Booster
Packs, Power Inverters)
Standard Motor Products (NASCAR Performance: Engine Management Products)
Ucoat-it (NASCAR Performance: Floor Coverings)
ZAK Products (NASCAR Performance: Professional Maintenance Fluids)