Looking for a deal with an ISC property to round out its NASCAR sponsorship portfolio, Fifth Third Bank this morning announced that it has filled Daytona Int'l Speedway's long-open banking category with a multiyear pact. The Cincinnati-based bank, which already had deals with SMI-owned Kentucky Speedway and Roush Fenway Racing's No. 17 Ford driven by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., becomes the official bank of DIS. The sides are not disclosing the precise amount of years for the deal, but DIS President Joie Chitwood III indicated that it is in the single digits. The bank gets IP rights to all DIS marks and logos, hospitality and signage at the track, and will have its ATMs deployed throughout the property. It also will look to deploy experiential marketing at the track. Sports sponsorships with banks quite often include high-finance assets such as capital-financing commitments, debt restructuring, merchant accounts or lines of credit. However, both sides declined to confirm or deny whether any such assets were included in this deal. Financial terms were not disclosed.
LOOKING FOR B-TO-B CONNECTION: Fifth Third Bank Senior VP/Marketing George Dick noted that in contrast to the Roush Fenway deal, which has the consumer-facing aspect of paint schemes, the DIS pact "is more of a business-to-business opportunity for Fifth Third." Dick: "We want to be viewed as the bank of motorsports, the financial provider of motorsports." To that end, Fifth Third VP/Strategy & Business Development for Motorsports David Morton said while the DIS pact "is a great opportunity, specifically for our North Florida market, it really extends across the bank's footprint." He added, "ISC is such a major player in the sport and the connectivity they have is really tremendous and furthers the number of introductions we get to Fortune 1000 companies. ... The good news here is we also have a relationship with Kentucky, so we feel very excited that we've shown our commitment by establishing partnerships and relationship with two of the bigger players in the sport." Fifth Third Bank President & CEO of its North Florida branch Brian Lamb added, "The loyalty in motorsports is fantastic, and we pay a lot of attention to that in our own business strategies. So we feel like there's some synergy around the importance of relationships, and we expect to leverage that as we continue to deepen our investment in motorsports."
THIRD TIME'S A CHARM: Morton said the motorsports program has "exceeded expectations" from a financial perspective, which spurred this further investment. While Fifth Third execs cited confidentiality agreements in not discussing how these specific deals have come about, Dick noted that "we view this as a marketing platform, and like any other marketing or advertising program we might be involved in, if it's not delivering a return for us, we couldn't continue to do it." Along with the fact that Fifth Third was looking for a relationship with ISC in general, Fifth Third views North Florida as an area for growth. The 150-year-old company, which has a 12-state retail footprint and a history of doing work in the automobile industry, has around 200,000 consumer households in the state along with 160 financial centers. Lamb: "We think a lot of our existing clients here in Florida are attendees at the racetracks, so we think we're going to get another touch point for our existing customers. And then we'll get access to other customers who would be a natural fit to work with Fifth Third Bank."
