 |
NASCAR Exec VP & CMO Steve Phelps yesterday said the sanctioning body is on the "right on track for the entitlement search" to replace outgoing Cup Series sponsor Sprint. Phelps, appearing on SiriusXM, said, "There is a significant amount of interest from a lot of different companies, a lot of different brands out there representing different categories, and so what we’re looking at right now is a combination of who is in the sport right now. Are we going to bring someone new into the sport? Is it a category that the teams are heavy in, are they not? But kind of the first one that I look at is what is going to be the best company or the best brand that helps grow our sport. What is the best company or the best brand that can bring our sport closer to our fans and that is what we are looking at right now. We’ve got eight or 10 companies that are kind of in the mix. We’ve had significantly more companies that we’ve had dialogue with that are no longer in the mix either because we didn’t think they were right for us or they didn’t believe we were right for them, but I am confident we are going to find the right company.”
TIME FRAME? Phelps said of the expected time for unveiling the new sponsor, “If you look at the announcements that we’ve had for the Xfinity Series and Nationwide Series before that, those were both October announcements, and I think when Nextel first came into the sport, I think it was September, so I think the timing will probably be somewhere around that same timing. We are trying to do it where we are not impacting and stepping on the great job that Sprint has done over the last 13 years and do it in a way that is respectful, and we don’t want to step on the Chase either ("Tradin' Paint," SiriusXM Radio, 5/4).
