How vital is a Nationwide Series team to the success of a Sprint Cup organization?

June 9, 3:52 AMSports Business ExaminerJosh Lobdell

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JGR's Nationwide program is adding value to the overall team Getty Images

Running teams in the Nationwide series adds value to a racing organization in many key ways. Some of them can be measured in dollars and sense, some of them can be measured in performance, and a lot of them cannot be measured at all. However many of these immeasurable benefits are why so many cup teams run teams in NASCAR’s Triple A Series.

In terms of measurable let us take a look at the most successful Nationwide series team over the last two years. Joe Gibbs Racings is without a doubt the class of every Nationwide filed, while many members of the media would have us believe they are only teams in this series to gain their cup drives seat time, or develop new drivers. I contend that running teams in the Nationwide series not only does all of that but brings in a substantial amount of revenue.

In 2008 JGR teams won 4,747,067 dollars in Nationwide purse money. Since their stable of cars started 57 races that year that works out to 83,281 dollars per Nationwide Series start.

Granted compared to the Sprint Cup numbers it may seem an insignificant amount. JGR cars started 109 Cup series races in 2008 winning 23,117,931 million dollars in purse money. That works out to just over 212,091 dollars per Sprint Cup series start.

Granted we must cut all of those numbers in half when we seek to understand how much the race team actually pocketed from these on the track activities. Most NASCAR drivers get 50% of each purse won. With that being said that means JGR pocketed 2,373,508.50 dollars from racing in the Nationwide series in 2008.

Forbes has JGR’s operating income at six million dollars meaning their Nationwide Series activities are valued at nearly a third of their operating income. How can anyone say a third of the operating income is insignificant?

JGR had ten different sponsors on their Nationwide cars in 2008; let us think about this logically, that is ten separate deals with different companies all of which took time and money to complete. Why would a Cup team do so if there were not substantial benefits both on the track, and in their pocketbook?

Forbes writer Jack Gage put it like this,” teams achieve diminishing returns from the lower series, which are used mostly to develop talent or familiarize Cup drivers with tracks week-to-week.”

This seems to be contrary to the assembled facts.

That is not to say there is not an advantage for Cup drivers to run in this series. They get more seat time, they get more time on the track, and they get to see how the tires wear for a given weekend. Since Goodyear uses the same tires for both series this is a huge advantage.

On top of that winning, or running well in a Nationwide race is a very good cure for a slumping Sprint Cup series driver. Furthermore there is little evidence that supports’ running well in the Nationwide series is a precursor to success in the Sprint Cup series. Only one man has won a title in both series (Bobby Labonte), and many highly talented Nationwide drivers have made no significant impact in the Cup series. Randy Lajoie and Johnny Benson immediately come to mind. These two drivers have three Nationwide and one Truck series championship between them and only share one victory in the Cup series.

This seems to counter act the argument Forbes has that this series is merely meant to develop new talent for the Cup series teams.

While Forbes contends that the Nationwide activities of a cup organization are insignificant, running these teams is giving the team some kind of value. If Forbes is going to evaluate the value of Cup organizations than it must consider these Nationwide operations as a hefty part of the overall value of the team.

In the end the point here is this the running a team in the Nationwide series is vital to the current and long term success of a Sprint Cup organization. That is success both on the track and in the pocket books. Anyone who says different has no idea how the NASCAR business model is designed to work.