Motorsports Teams Facing Sponsorship Woes Due To U.S. Economy

Yates Racing One Of Several NASCAR Teams Struggling To Find Sponsorships

At least ten NASCAR Sprint Cup teams "hoping to run the full 2008 schedule still are looking for enough sponsorship backing to get through the year" in part due to the struggling economy, according to Terry Blount of ESPN.com. No sport is "affected more by changing economic conditions than racing," as spending millions of dollars "to place a logo on a race car becomes an unnecessary extravagance instead of a marketing opportunity." While about 35 cars are fully sponsored for the year, Yates Racing "doesn't have sponsorship on either of its Cup cars" for '08, and finding a full-time sponsor now, less than a month before the Daytona 500, "is almost impossible." As a result, the number of multiple sponsorships of cars "will continue to increase." Many teams are "forced to accept partial sponsorship deals for a portion of the season because that's all many companies are willing to buy." Meanwhile, NHRA teams are also facing a lack of sponsors this season, including Bullet Motorsports' Dave Connolly, who "might not race this year because he doesn't have sponsorship." Connolly won eight races last year, but his team is among those "affected by Torco Racing Fuels' suspending its sponsorship program" due to health problems of company President Evan Knoll (ESPN.com, 1/29).