Marcellus is running the old #2 Miller colors.
Posted on 12/09/2008 10:53:03 AM PST by BurbankKarl
Once-unstoppable Nascar is hitting a wall as its fan base erodes, race attendance declines, TV ratings slip, the auto industry implodes and economically stressed marketers slam the brakes on sponsorships. The pileup is so big that Nascar, long held up as the gold standard in sports marketing due to its followers -- fiercely loyal to the sport and its sponsoring brands -- had to lay off 1,000 employees and is fretting over whether it could actually lose money next year.
CEO Brian France, speaking last week in New York at its big year-end promotional event, Champions Week, said Nascar won't see increased sponsorship revenue in 2009 -- a seemingly unthinkable turn of events for a sport that added $150 million in sponsorship dollars last year. "Next year, we will not obviously make that kind of a gain," he warned, then added, "The question is, are we going to back up?"
Of Nascar's 42 full-time drivers, 12 currently do not have primary sponsors for the 2009 season, which begins in less than 10 weeks with the Daytona 500. Primary sponsors pay $18 million to $20 million to be featured as the main logo for all 38 races on a driver's car, such as DuPont does with Jeff Gordon. Running nearly a third of its cars without a major sponsor is a huge problem, since under its team business model, at least 75% of the budget comes from sponsors.
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Old friends And two Nascar marketing staples have left. Eastman Kodak ended a 22-year relationship, while Sears Roebuck, hard hit by the economic downturn and anemic retail sales, decided to end its 13-year title sponsorship of the Craftsman Truck Series after this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at adage.com ...
Who has the nascar ping list ?
The NASCAR bubble has come to an end?.............
I don’t supose that dropping all the “rinky dink” races in the south/east could have anything to do with the “fan base”?
Ping.
They killed the Golden Goose. Isn’t the first time. Won’t be the last.
Bingo.
Pingading
12 of 42 teams hanging in the wind sponsor-wise.
There is a withdrawal thread I will link this up to.
NASCAR OFFICIAL OFF SEASON WITHDRAWAL THREAD 5
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2136272/posts
I doubt that Obammy knows or cares, but if asked he will definitely proclaim: BUSH’S FAULT!!
Ping for the nascar list!
Bring back the Rock and North Wilksboro. Honestly I’d like to see fewer of these mid range tracks and put in a few more short track races. Maybe even put in at least one more road course race. I imagine there is probably some COT backlash going on here too since some don’t like the cookie cutter car format that they are forced to run now.
I never would have guessed that NASCAR had 1,000 employees that it could lay off. Now I understand why it cost Remington $11,000,000 to paint their name on a car in 1997.
just pinged the list..
This is tragic. I like NASCAR, say what you will. It is a part of American culture, going back to the Hudson days. I’m sorry they have to be affected...
With the economy the way it is, people are saving their cash. Companies aren’t advertising as much. I cut our advertising off a long time ago.
Obama’s energy plan will have NASCAR racing chariots and stanley steamers.
Bail-out Time. :-]
Please cry me a river. The France family is SINGLE handedly responsible for this mess. They acted like Gods and the sport did not matter one iota to them. It was all about them and THEIR tracks and how they could benefit, fans be darned.
Look at the fuss it took to get a second race to the TMS. The France family only took care of themselves and if they go bankrupt, no tears from this fan.
This isn’t fair. I miss ALL the good bubbles!
Marcellus is running the old #2 Miller colors.
I definitely see this dropping of sponsors in NASCAR. My Son and My ex-wife are both Fans. As far as I am concerned seeing a bunch of cars go round and round on a track is just not very exciting.
But for the die-hard fans in the family I can see the signs of burnout. They don’t watch the races as much and usually look at the stats on Monday.
And as my son said the other day to me, “The amount of money being spent is obscene”.
It’ll be interesting to see how this ends up.
right on! NASCAR will be ok but they will have the same difficulty as other sporting events. At the awards banquet last Friday in New York, there was a lot of directives to support GM and the bailout. Hoping Toyota don’t become a series sponsor or goodbye it may be.
NASCAR is still a good advertising buy compared to other media outlets. This isn’t so much NASCAR has changed, as companies are cutting back in general.
In hard times, compaies look for areas to cut costs. For some reason, the dumber CEOs think marketing is a good place to start cutting costs. When sales slip, that is the time you need to increase your marketing efforts.
Can you imagine a race car with government departments’ logos all over it?.........
Damn straight. I won't watch the races at the fuel mileage tracks. BORING.
So the current economy and state of the car mfgrs is irrelevant to this discussion?
NFL next?...................NEVER!!!!!!!!.........
The Fan Base is the South and they left us behind for the NE and the West.
But maybe this is a good thing in a way, who knows? The drivers can go back to the days of using regular automobiles and souping them up. Or maybe building Electric Cars and racing them? Now THAT would be cool . . . no more “can they make it on the gas left in the tank” to “can they make it on a dead battery?”
Craftsman Truck Series is a real loss, though.
(And you know, Craftsman is the ONLY tool maker I could find that makes a lightweight drill. Those battery ones are too heavy for me [older woman, think Aunt Bea on Andy Griffith] and I wanted a plug in type. Found it at KMart.)
in the correction, that number comes from teams, sponsors, lounge lizards, etc.
who knows how accurate it is.
What I am concerned about more than NASCAR is the survival of the local short tracks. We had to drop our late model 2 years ago due to lack of sponsorship. Too expensive to run out of pocket any more. Used to be a hobby that was fun. The money took the fun out of the sport.
Economy is relevant as much it is relevant to the NFL. Yes, it hurts the industry.
However, the problems of Nascar run deeper than the economy. It has to do with the fact that the business is not run for the benefit of the entire industry. It is run for the benefit of one family.
In the NFL the business is organized around the 32 teams and their owners and also the players. Costs and profits are both spread around.
In NASCAR the France family determines single handedly who makes money and who does not. So you can go and spend a few hundred million dollars putting up a racetrack and be promised a second race but then never be given one.
There hasn’t been any “racing” done on a NASCAR track in close to 10 years.
Could it be all those left turns. Maybe the drama
of the left turns has been solved.
I like racing but I have never understood NASCAR’s appeal.
1) A race car with a Steetcar body. Yawn
2) A race without corner to corner turns. Yawn
3) Engines should be VISIBLE, so we can laugh at your mechanics as we see it disintegrate. Hehe
I used to go to SCCA racing events. (now that’s racing.)
Well, I for one have to admit that NASCAR isn’t the same anymore. I don’t like the way they have redone things and changed the rules. I also don’t like the fact that drivers don’t stay with teams any longer.... they are all over the place. Back when Dale Sr. drove, I hardly missed a race... now I hardly watch one.
I am sure that Daytona will do just fine, however!
How long until they ask for a bailout?
Fox News announcing NFL will lay off 10% of its league office staff - about 150 jobs. This is jobs at the league HQ itself, NFL Films, and their media office in LA.
Drivers have been hopping teams for 50+ years!
I still can't imagine Air Force and National Guard sponsorships , but I have to believe they find it an effective advertising buy .
Note to NASCAR. In the post race interview immediately following a race, don’t let drivers only talk about their sponsors. It ruins your credibility with many folks.
If an outfit grows exponentially, eventually expenses will exceed the ability of the market to pay them. I think NASCAR is at that point. If they laid off 1000 workers, how many did they keep on the payroll? What do all those thousands of people do?
I see your point.
I have been telling my family here for years that once a “sport” becomes too expensive to “enter” then it is no longer a sport and just another form of entertainment business.
Football, Baseball, Basketball, Golf, Hockey..ETC.
Once a sport gets to the point that you have “professionals” being the only participants then the end of the sport is in sight. For some it takes years for others decades. And don’t get me going on the Thieves who make us pay for their new stadiums every few years.
The new era of forced diversity and rap lingos is likely the main culprit in this trend.
My wife and father-in-law are big on it still even though it might be waning some after all these years.
NASCAR like most other sports are just overblown effects shows. However, there are plenty of fools still willing to pay for it.
I didn’t see that among the corrections. It makes a lot more sense now. I always figured that most of the people involved in the races were employed by the teams, the sponsors, and the tracks. Thanks.
Gee, maybe people are sick of rule changes made to guarantee who is going to win the championship.
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