SST Series Sponsor

Any idea who the series sponsor will be? I think it will be LUCAS OIL.

LOL!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dave Horwath on February 20, 2013 at 7:19pm

Have you ever heard of Benjamin Sloss Treynor? He's the VP of Google. This his funny way of showing some of his car collection. I understand demographics, sales, the push and pull in adverting. I also understand complacency & attrition. You never know who's got an interest or what stuffed shirt is a closet racing person. Remember the Blackberry?

Cool Toys

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by WJM on February 19, 2013 at 11:48am

I side with Mike. Having a title sponsor is a double-edged sword.

Does the Indy Racing Northern Light Series ring a bell with anyone? A classic example of buying into the Must Have Title Sponsor mantra. Northern Light was a search engine start up that signed a 5 year deal as title sponsor of the Indy Racing League in 2000 - and promptly went belly up less than two years later.

When RJ Reynolds married the Winston brand as title sponsor in 1972 of NASCAR's top division it wasn't all roses either. The first live coverage of the Daytona 500 wasn't until 1979 and only 5 of 31 races that year were televised in edited taped delay form. RJ Reynolds provided a much needed financial boost and gave the Grand National division and new identity but had an adverse effect on expanding the NASCAR brand due to the ban on tobacco advertising on TV. NASCAR as a company benefited from the Winston relationship more than teams and drivers.

Same goes for the exclusivity of the Sprint title sponsor package. It benefits NASCAR corporate and Sprint more than it does race teams...who without them there would be no series. The Robby-Motorola sponsorship problem is a good example. AT&T, Verizon and Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) spent over $5 billion in U.S. media advertising in 2011. What was their commercial spend during the Sprint Unlimited? Zip. Nada. That's a hell of a lot of money to leave on the table. The 45 entries for this year's Daytona 500 equals the fewest ever in 54 year history of the race. Without the exclusive deals and the conflicts with the official this or that of NASCAR, how many teams would still be in business or new teams created?

The mindset that a series sponsor adds legitimacy is overrated and too often creates more problems than it solves in the long run. In my opinion, inclusion is the key to long term success of SST.