The business of racing: sponsorship woes

February 27, 1:52 PMDetroit NASCAR ExaminerJosh Lobdell

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Sprint Cup cars make effective compnay billboards

One of the benefits of having the second Sprint Cup race of the year in California is it affords the owners the chance to smooze with big time West Coast sponsors. They get them out to the track, hopefully run well, and play let’s make a deal. This is exactly what happened last week while the cars were circling the track at the Auto Club Speedway.

Many teams who do not have full sponsorship for their cars were wining and dining potential sponsors in California. Richard Petty Motor sports who needs funding for about six races on Reed Sorenson’s #43 car. AlthoughJayski is now reporting that PVA will continue its two race deal that it signed with the now defunct Petty Enterprises. So maybe they only need funding for four races on the #43 car.

RPM does have another problem though. The #44 team of AJ Allmendinger does not have anywhere near funding for the full season. Right now it looks like he has funding for about seven or eight races, finding him a sponsor should be the team’s focus. AJ deserves a Sprint Cup ride and if one cannot be found this sport may lose him to F-1. RPM is also looking for an associate sponsor for Kasey Khane’s #9 car.

For a sport so dependent on sports business these kind of issues can easily derail what could be a breakout season for the RPM team, a team like the #44 that has a little momentum heading into Las Vegas this week. Keeping AJ in NASCAR should be a top priority for his team as well as NASCAR officials.

Among the other team wooing potential sponsors last week in California was Earnhardt-Ganassi racing. Their #8 team of driver Aric Almirola only has funding for ten races and their #1 team of Martin Truex Jr. needs to find sponsorship for about six more races. They will face a steep challenge trying to find partners for these races because one of the premier teams is also looking for sponsorship.

Roush Fenway racing is looking for sponsorship partners to buy up some of the races already funded by their current primary sponsors. Right now Roush has about 35 sponsors over the three national divisions of NASCAR. If they are looking for additional sponsors this may well cut off the lower tier teams from additional funding.

Think about it like this if you ran a company that was considering sponsoring a race car would you rather sponsor Aric Almirola or any one of the five Roush cup drivers? Knowing that Roush could put your company’s logo on a competitive cup, nationwide, or truck series entry the answer seems really obvious.

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