On the latest episode of “SBJ Unpacks: The Road Ahead,” our Bill King and Adam Stern discuss the impact of NASCAR banning the Confederate flag at its events and properties.
On NASCAR’s process in deciding to ban the flag:
Stern: They had already banned the Confederate flag in terms of any sort of association with paints schemes or anything with track imagery, et cetera. Then you had the Charleston church shootings and they even went further. They started requesting people not fly it, but they didn’t absolutely require it. ... Fast forward to the social unrest in recent weeks, and in retrospect, what we saw was NASCAR leverage this moment. This time they banished the flag once and for all. There’s been a lot of talk about Bubba Wallace going on CNN and saying that should be the next step, but my understanding is that it was in the works well before that.
On reaction around the sport:
Stern: No one is really at track talking. There is no media at track, so it’s a tough time to try to get everyone’s point of view in. Furthermore, it’s just a tough time to even figure out what the impact is going to be, because you don’t have fans at track. … If you want to look at it in just cold analysis of what this means from a business perspective, it’s kind of a master stroke, because they made this very controversial -- from some of their fans’ point of view -- move in a time where people can’t go to track. This is going to let the dust settle to a large extent.
On practical implementation of the policy:
Stern: “From talking to track executives, I expect it to be fairly routine … in terms of how they’re going to enforce it. There are already things that are banned in NASCAR tracks. For example: fireworks. … What (track executives) expect is that you’re going to have security sweeps that already happen. They might happen more now, and if security sees a Confederate flag up, you’re going to be asked to take it down or you’re going to be asked to leave. If you don’t comply you could be arrested for trespassing. It’s going to depend on state laws in a certain regard.
