NASCAR today is announcing a deal with Aspen Dental that will see the company named official dentist of the sanctioning body. The deal is for multiple years and involves a rights fee, said NASCAR VP/Business Development Chad Seigler. Sources valued the deal in the high six to low seven-figure range. The deal is centered around the launch of Aspen Dental’s “Get Started” campaign, which posits that tens of millions of Americans did not visit a dentist in the past year. Aspen and NASCAR will push the partnership via digital media and track assets, alongside Aspen’s ongoing sponsorship of Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 10 Ford driven by Danica Patrick. Aspen has been with SHR since ’12 and Patrick since ’14. Seigler: “For them it was never about an IP rights deal or just a sponsorship deal; it was all about kind of telling the story of a health initiative. ... It’s a brand that has been in the sport but has seen the value from the sport and has decided to grow it on the team level and now the official partnership level.” Aspen Dental VP & Chief Communications Officer Michelle Vaeth added, “This partnership was borne out of conversations that happened when we were at NASCAR’s headquarters of August of last year. … We were chatting with the NASCAR team (about the number of people who don’t go to the dentist every year), and they said, ‘When you think about the NASCAR fanbase, that’s made up of millions of everyday Americans, too, and this is an issue that is probably impacting our fanbase in a big way."
