Sprint is preparing to return in 2016 for a lame-duck year as title sponsor of NASCAR’s Cup Series, though the sponsor was open to leaving early if the opportunity arose, according to sources.
The Kansas City-based carrier, whose contract expires after the 2016 season, indicated to NASCAR months ago that if the sanctioning body found a brand that wanted to take over starting in 2016, Sprint would be open to the arrangement, according to sources. There could have been a financial component to such a move, those sources added, with Sprint helping alleviate a new sponsor’s first-year commitment in the sport. Sprint currently spends between $50 million and $75 million on its title deal annually.
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Sprint offered to step aside early if NASCAR found a title sponsor interested in a 2016 start.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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However, with sources saying there has been no indication a new deal is imminent and with the 2016 season just four months away, the window to get a replacement by next year has about closed due to the immense logistical planning and execution that go into such a switch.
Sprint officials acknowledged that the sponsor was coming back. NASCAR declined to comment.
Brands that have been pitched on the title sponsorship include Panasonic, LG, Coca-Cola, Goodyear, Comcast and Hisense, according to sources. They added that Hisense showed the most interest thus far, though the China-based consumer electronics brand has decided against it for now. NASCAR went to market asking $100 million per year for a minimum of 10 years.
That a foreign company was so keen on the deal is one of a spate of recent indications that there is an increasing chance the title sponsorship could go to a brand based outside the U.S. At a recent business of motorsports panel at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, NASCAR COO Brent Dewar said the sanctioning body “is in conversations with a number” of internationally based companies.
That comes on the heels of numerous industry executives commenting privately that even landing team-level deals with top U.S.-based brands has become tough because of how often these brands have been pitched by NASCAR stakeholders over the years. And, these executives noted, if NASCAR lands an international company, it may be able to charge a premium.
“I happen to believe that there’s a high likelihood that the next title sponsor of the sport will be a brand that’s not based in the U.S.,” said a source familiar with the sales process. “[For a brand to want this deal, it needs the mindset of], ‘We need to grow our business there; what’s the solution that will do that? The No. 2 sport in the country by a long shot, even though the numbers have declined a bit in the last few years.’ …
“It needs to be a mindset like that [because] some of the [main] characters in the U.S. have been in front of NASCAR 50 times over the last five years.”
NASCAR has been more intent on international expansion since Dewar came on board in 2014, highlighted by the 10-year global media rights distribution pact it signed with WME-IMG that has produced deals in China and India, among other countries.
Hillary Mandel, senior vice president of IMG Media, has said that a side benefit to the NASCAR deal has been that WME-IMG is finding foreign companies that may be interested in NASCAR sponsorship opportunities.
Categories that are being pursued by NASCAR for the title sponsorship include consumer electronics, financial services and telecommunications, according to sources. The latter two of those are either completely or relatively competition-free in NASCAR, which makes them desirable because they would create fewer issues for NASCAR teams during an eventual changeover from Sprint.
Numerous sources pointed out that a deal of this magnitude was almost always going to take two years to complete, which speaks more to the glacial pace of corporations than anything else, they added. They also pointed out that a lame-duck sponsor working to avoid its final year is routine in sports marketing, meaning it would have been more surprising if Sprint hadn’t shown interest in getting out a year early.
Involved in the NASCAR sales effort are Chief Sales Officer Jim O’Connell; Steve Phelps, executive vice president and CMO; Chad Seigler, vice president of business development; Matt Shulman, managing director of series marketing; Chairman and CEO Brian France; and Dewar.
The only title sponsors in Cup series history are Winston (1971-2003), Nextel (2004-07) and Sprint.
