Tony Stewart did not participate in a media tour at Joe Gibbs Racing last month because of a scheduling conflict that had him exchanging handshakes and small talk with the president of the United States.
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A visit to the White House to meet President Bush
was just one of many stops Nextel Cup champion
Tony Stewart made in January, a month considered
to be part of the “offseason.” |
Combine that visit to the White House with multiple commercial shoots, a sponsored hunting trip in Alabama and hockey game in Indiana, and racing commitments from Daytona to Sin City, and Stewart had a January that looked and felt like anything but the “offseason.”
For other drivers, such as Jeff Gordon, the story is much the same regardless of the month or time of year. In November 2005, Gordon had sponsor or driver responsibilities on 21 of the 30 days in the month. He had multiple appearances, sometimes in different states, on seven of those days.
Kyle Busch, Gordon’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate who this year will drive full time in both the Nextel Cup and Busch Series, has started to prepare himself for a schedule he says is “hard to fathom.” Busch will compete in 73 NASCAR races this year and will likely spend more than 200 days in a race car alone between testing, qualifying, practicing and racing.
“You know this year, I’m probably going to spend almost a month’s worth of time in an airplane,” Busch said referring to his busy race schedule and likely 90-plus sponsorship appearances. “Now that’s kind of weird to think about.”
The demand on a NASCAR driver’s time, even in the offseason, is huge. From sponsor appearances and commercial shoots, to charity events and testing, there’s rarely an “off” week for the guys who make a living behind the wheel.
Although some in the sport say those demands need to be re-examined, almost everyone in the sport realizes how important these companies — and their resulting commitments — are to the survival and growth of NASCAR.
Part of the deal
Primary sponsorship of a Nextel Cup Series team now runs in the range of $15 million to $18 million per year. Associate deals, though a much smaller investment, can cost upward of $2 million on an annual basis.
And regardless of the size of the company, these investments are not chump change. In order to hit the company’s numbers and justify its spend, an effective marketing platform must be put in place. And today, more so than at any other time in the sport’s 50-plus years of existence, those marketing plans rely on the drivers and, consequently, their time.
“It’s not just an ad buy anymore,” Kyle Petty, driver of the No. 45 Dodge, said referring to sponsorship. “Now you are part of a marketing platform. The driver, the car and the sponsor are part of the activation and the marketing and the sales. The driver and car are used for appearances and promotions and public relations.”
Pat Guilbert, vice president of sponsorships and events for UPS, said his company, which is the primary sponsor of Dale Jarrett’s No. 88 Ford, and the rest of the sponsor community are becoming more sophisticated in that they are honing in on their activation plans and getting the most out of the drivers.
“If you do a deal with a team, the value is with the driver,” Guilbert said. “There’s certainly other aspects you have to activate, and we do, but more of us are beginning to realize that the driver should be a significant platform in the activation campaign.”
William Clements, NASCAR sponsorship manager for Masterfoods USA, said his company’s primary sponsorship of Elliott Sadler and the Robert Yates Racing organization begins, and usually ends, with Sadler.
“When you talk to NASCAR fans, it’s the driver,” Clements said. “The more often we can get Elliott to make an appearance, the better off our sponsorship will be.”
Although no appearance is the same, a typical appearance, which usually lasts no more than an hour, takes place at a hospitality tent before a race or at company offices during the week. A brief speech from the driver, in which he or she thanks that particular sponsor and its employees, is followed by a question-and-answer session and usually a few minutes of autographs and one-on-one introductions.
On average, the top 20 Nextel Cup drivers are doing between 50 and 70 appearances per year, with as many as half of those going to the primary sponsor. Couple that with 38 racing weekends, six test dates and numerous production days for sponsors and personal service agreements, and a driver’s schedule is more than full.
But the drivers, and their teams, oblige because they know that without the corporate support they couldn’t afford to make the cars go around the track.
“I know if I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t be racing on Sunday,” said Sadler, driver of the No. 38 Ford. “You have to understand that you have to give the sponsor the time that they deserve.”
Brian Vickers, driver of the No. 25 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, said it is all simply part of the sport.
“It’s inevitable,” Vickers said. “And you either deal with it or you don’t. If you don’t want to deal with it, you can still race. You just won’t race at this level.”
Driver endorsements
On top of sponsor commitments, a driver’s off-track responsibility has increased significantly because of the frequency with which personal endorsement deals are being signed. NASCAR drivers are now just as likely to be asked to endorse a watch or a cologne as are athletes in more traditional endorsement-friendly sports such as basketball or baseball.
Rod Moskowitz, top manager of Motorsports Management International, a driver representation firm that reps current Nextel Cup drivers including Stewart, Jamie McMurray, Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne, said these personal endorsement opportunities are more readily available today than at any other time.
“Clearly, there are more companies, and it grows on a year-to-year basis, that want to be involved in the sport, so you’re seeing more drivers land more deals than you did several years ago,” Moskowitz said.
Moskowitz would not discuss exact figures of specific deals, but he did say that most personal service contracts are between $150,000 and $500,000 annually, with some agreements in excess of $1 million. Add those deals to base salaries, prize money and royalties from merchandise, and top-tier drivers are making up to $10 million a year to drive a car.
Because of these extraordinary salaries and the frequency at which they are choosing to sign additional personal service deals, it is hard to feel sorry for any NASCAR driver. As opposed to sponsors, which pay to make the car go, endorsements are being signed because the drivers want more money and exposure.
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable and the drivers are in phenomenal position,” Moskowitz said. “And I want to be careful how I say this, but other athletes around the world would love to have this problem, so I don’t think it’s an issue.”
John Bickford, Gordon’s business manager and stepfather, called the drivers’ schedules “horrendous” but agreed that the financial benefits more than make up for a life without much personal time.
“I would guess that Jeff Gordon made more money in the last three years than Harry Gant and Ned Jarrett made combined in their careers,” Bickford said, referring to two longtime NASCAR legends.
To put it in perspective, Gordon became the first driver in the history of NASCAR to exceed $4 million in regular-season winnings when he won the championship with 10 victories and 22 top-five finishes in 1997. In 2005, 26 drivers topped the $4 million mark, including little-known Scott Riggs, who finished the year 34th in points.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., probably the most popular driver in the country, has endorsement deals with Best Sweet Inc., Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Kraft and Wrangler Jeans, just to name a few. Kahne, a much younger driver who has won one Cup race in his career, has personal deals with Allstate, Great Clips, McDonald’s, Puma and several others.
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Jeff Gordon fields a question while appearing
at a hospitality event at Las Vegas held by
DuPont, the primary sponsor on Gordon’s car. |
And although not every Cup driver’s last name is Earnhardt and not everyone has the movie-star looks of Kahne, the endorsement deals are flowing in regardless — and not everyone is thrilled about it.
Eric Pinkham, director of motorsports for Newell Rubbermaid, a primary sponsor for Roush Racing, said drivers should limit how many personal endorsement deals they sign.
“For some drivers, perhaps a greater focus on their team’s primary sponsors and less on personal service arrangements would benefit everyone,” Pinkham said. “More time for the race team and the brands on the hood of the car and less for the company that provides you with free sunglasses.”
In contract negotiations, sponsors do not restrict the number of personal deals a driver signs, but they do have a say with which companies he or she associates. But Steve Lauletta, president of sports marketing agency The Radiate Group, said drivers respect their sponsors and usually deliver whatever they need, and more.
“From a sponsor’s standpoint, I don’t think they see a problem,” Lauletta said. “They’ve agreed to be provided X and they expect, and get, X.”
The team owners, who want to keep their drivers from getting distracted, also encourage their athletes to try to limit how many personal deals they sign. J.D. Gibbs, who as president of Joe Gibbs Racing fields three Nextel Cup teams including last year’s champion, said racing always comes first at JGR.
“We tell our guys, ‘Take care of the team first and then if you’ve got time and want to do some other stuff, great,’” Gibbs said. “‘But just don’t wear yourself out.’”
Off-track pressures
During practice sessions for a Nextel Cup race last fall, Busch Series regular Denny Hamlin, who had just been tapped to drive the third Gibbs car in the Cup series, was being interviewed on “NASCAR This Morning.” Unprepared and unfamiliar with the role as company spokesman, the pimply faced 25-year-old thanked all the employees at UPS.
Problem was, his sponsor was FedEx.
Hamlin recovered and there wasn’t a huge backlash from FedEx, but it did reveal some of the off-track pressures drivers face daily.
Bickford said the younger guys, such as Hamlin, are being pulled in too many directions and asked to wear too many hats.
“What worries me is the fact that so many young guys coming into the sport are not properly conditioned to be pulled in all these directions,” Bickford said. “Once they learn and get conditioned, they can wear all the hats, but how do you get a kid conditioned?”
Erik Darnell, an up-and-comer for Roush Racing who this year will race in the Craftsman Truck Series, said off-track responsibilities are indeed what scare him the most.
“That’s one of the things I’m not used to and one of the things I’m the most uncomfortable about,” Darnell said when asked about sponsor commitments. “I’d rather be out there just holding the steering wheel, but that’s something I’ve got to get used to because it’s part of the sport, especially up here on this level.”
But Darnell likely has some time to learn before he is thrust into the world of weekly sponsor commitments and daily media requests.
“The value of the Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart names is such that the sponsors put a lot of demands on them because their brand value is so high that they actually create product sales by attaching their names and faces to it,” Bickford said. “The new drivers don’t have that brand value to speak of. So it doesn’t do the sponsor a lot of good to use them, and so those drivers don’t have the same demands.”
Mark Coughlin, executive vice president and COO of sports agency Octagon Racing, said a lot of the scheduling problems are self-inflicted as the driver signs more and more personal endorsement deals as his or her brand equity gains strength.
“That becomes problematic for marketers in that the primary sponsor, the one putting up the big money, certainly should have a level of priority over not only an associate sponsor but also over any personal deal the driver may have,” Coughlin said. “But as the driver gets stronger and his demand by other teams and sponsors increases, they can demand that, ‘Hey, my helmet is off limits, my visor is off limits, I get an upper chest area, I get a 4-by-4 space there for me, or I get so much space on my sleeves.’”
Support staff
Regardless of the driver, and his or her brand equity, today’s top-tier racers have two full-time jobs. One is on Sunday and the other is every other day of the week.
Jon Edwards, Gordon’s spokesman and weekend schedule planner, said the daily grind is hard to comprehend.
“To be honest, looking at his schedule, making his schedule, I said, ‘I don’t understand how you’re doing January,’” Edwards said. “I really don’t because it’s constant with production days and sponsor commitments.”
Gordon, who took the first week of January off, worked 21 days last month, including four days of testing, six days of photo shoots and seven sponsor appearances.
The weekly task of planning a driver’s schedule and balancing his or her sponsor and endorsement commitments has become a task that requires professional and full-time assistance.
Gordon, who Bickford says does 25 meet-and-greets, 45 appearances and 38 DuPont and 20 Pepsi hospitalities each year, has a full-time staff that includes Bickford, his weekday manager and Edwards, who is charged with handling Gordon between Friday morning and Sunday night.
And even though not every driver needs multiple managers, they all have to have some sort of professional assistance to help field all the demands and work with their sponsors on a weekly, and usually a daily, basis.
Radiate’s Lauletta said public relations coordinators or personal managers are crucial to controlling a driver’s schedule.
“Not every request from a sponsor is the most important request and I’m not sure every request from NASCAR or the media is the most important request at that time,” Lauletta said. “It really begs the reason why you’ve got to have a great team of people surrounding each driver to help them weave through all the requests and potential commitments.”
Busch said he couldn’t survive without the daily help he receives from his personal PR representative.
“They handle all my scheduling and just tell me where I’ve got to be when I’ve got to be there,” he said.
Shortening careers
The long-term effect these schedules are going to have on the sport — and the drivers, in particular — has yet to be determined, but the consensus thus far is that there is no end in sight and, therefore, careers are going to be shortened significantly. Part of that will be related to the much higher level of compensation today’s driver enjoys, but much of it no doubt will be because of today’s grueling day-to-day schedule.
Rusty Wallace, who recently retired after 25 years behind the wheel and $43 million in career earnings, said he was leaving because of the schedule.
“The worst is the schedule. I don’t agree with the schedule and that’s why I’m quitting,” Wallace said. “I can’t keep up with it. I’ve got a lot of things in life I want to do and this schedule has taken an incredible toll on my family and my wife personally.”
Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 Roush Racing Ford who plans to retire in 2006 after 24 years in the Cup Series, said the level of compensation, not the demands on the drivers, will lead to shorter careers.
“The sport is a lot more lucrative today than it ever was,” Martin said. “Before, a professional race car driver couldn’t quit. It’s more lucrative now, and so it’s up to us to handle our own retirement as we go and we’ll be able to do that easier as the sport continues to grow.”
Octagon Racing’s Coughlin agreed with Wallace and Martin but said the sponsor trend continues to be to ask for more as sponsorship costs increase.
“It’s not that they’re being asked to do too much, the money has just gotten so big that in order for a sports marketing department manager or their agency to feel that they’re getting more value as the sponsorship costs increase, they feel like they have to negotiate for more, more, more,” he said. “Whether that be more appearances, more meet-and-greets, more production days … the pressure is on due to the increasing costs overall to compete.”
Gordon, who’ll turn 35 in August, said he won’t be able to have a Mark Martin or Rusty Wallace type of career, both of whom have raced until they were almost 50 years old.
“There’s no way, man,” Gordon said about the possibility of a 25-year career. “I don’t plan on being here, at least at this level, 11 years from now.”
Darnell, who has yet to win a Truck Series race, let alone a Busch or Cup series event, said he can imagine growing tired of the off-track demands.
“I don’t know about everything that comes with it and what it entails, but I’m sure I’ll be sick of it after a year or so,” he said.
Vickers, who at age 22 is entering his third Cup season, echoed that sentiment and suggested he’d like to eventually race without the corporate commitments and media demands.
“I won’t quit racing, but I think I will have had enough of this level of it and this much responsibility off the track,” he said. “Maybe I’ll go play somewhere, run some Hooters Cup races, or Busch races or trucks or late models. Or who knows, maybe I’ll just get on a sailboat in Key West and play guitar.”
