Farmers Insurance signed a three-year deal late last week to become the primary sponsor of Hendrick Motorsports' No. 5 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car, beginning in '12 when Kasey Kahne replaces Mark Martin as the car's driver. Sources said the deal makes Farmers the primary sponsor on the car for 22 races. A deal is expected to be announced today. Terms of the agreement were not available, but typical primary sponsorships sell for as much as $15M. This comes less than a month after the Farmers logo made its first appearance at a NASCAR race on the No. 25 car during the Sprint All-Star Race and builds on the insurer's recent surge in sports sponsorships.
At the time of signing its initial deal with Hendrick in April, Farmers President of Enterprise Marketing Paul Patsis said, "It's hard to ignore NASCAR and the NFL. They dominate sports. This seemed like a natural extension for us." Farmers is the second new sponsor Hendrick Motorsports has brought into NASCAR in the last year. At the end of '10, it signed a deal with the AARP Foundation to sponsor its No. 24 car driven by Jeff Gordon. Hendrick Motorsports decline to comment.
