Donning a magenta racing firesuit, T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere revealed a Richard Childress Racing logo around his left collarbone as he rolled down the hallway on a Segway.
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T-Mobile’s John Legere sports a racing firesuit, a pitch from Richard Childress Racing.
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The humorous scene came from a five-second video posted in mid-August to Legere’s Twitter account, where he blasted the note out to his more than 2.9 million followers.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup team says the firesuit was part of a preliminary outreach to T-Mobile, one of four major players in the U.S. telecommunications landscape alongside Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, NASCAR’s outgoing title sponsor. As the video indicated, teams, tracks and other industry stakeholders have been preparing in recent months for the telecom category to open up in 2017 by getting out in the market and pitching carriers and related phone companies, sources said.
Stakeholders are operating under the assumption that Sprint’s exit will allow the telecom category to open up for the first time since 2004, when Nextel, which Sprint eventually purchased, became Cup Series title sponsor. Whether that’s because NASCAR has assured stakeholders that the next title sponsor won’t be in the telecom category, or because NASCAR will operate with a new understanding of exclusivity in the category, is unclear.
NASCAR, which is also likely to seek out an official partner in the category, declined to comment.
“When Nextel and then Sprint came in, they effectively blocked the category sport-wide, and you don’t see that very often,” said Tyson Webber, president of GMR Marketing. “So [NASCAR’s] focus is going to be on signing an official partnership, but all of the teams, drivers and tracks — I’ve got to think they’re just being inundated with different ways to use NASCAR.”
Brands that have been pitched, sources said, include AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T prepaid brand Cricket Wireless and tablet and phone case maker OtterBox. Sprint also has been pitched on deals that would see it remain in the sport. However, Kimberly Meesters, Sprint’s general manager of NASCAR Sprint Cup sponsorship, said it’s unclear whether any of the prospective deals will come to fruition.
“We have been approached by various groups,” Meesters said, “but Sprint has no plans for 2017.”
Some of the major players appear to be taking a cautious approach before jumping back in.
If it enters the series, Verizon, which is title sponsor of the IndyCar series, is seen as likely to align with Team Penske, who it already partners with in IndyCar. Verizon is “happy with our IndyCar deal, and we are not looking at other opportunities currently,” said Steve Williams, Verizon’s manager of marketing partnerships.
T-Mobile, which markets itself as a millennial brand, has been pitched by numerous teams and tracks. But “The Un-carrier,” as it calls itself, is already deeply invested in MLB and not in a rush to sign NASCAR deals, according to sources. T-Mobile did not reply by press time.
Dallas-based AT&T, which formerly was aligned with RCR before leaving NASCAR amid a rancorous fallout over exclusivity, also is taking a wait-and-see approach and is not in a rush to jump back into the sport, sources said. AT&T declined to comment.
Of interest is whether one carrier deciding to go on the offensive could spark a slew of reactionary entrances by its competitors, as has happened in the past in NASCAR when new categories like spirits opened for the first time.
“Some of the wait-and-see is going to be brands really trying to determine the effects that they can have … coming out of the shadow of Sprint,” Webber said. “There can be great value to come into the sport, but I have to think it’s at least in the back of some of the marketers’ minds that over the course of the past 13 to 14 years, a competitor has had such a large, predominant presence in the sport.”
