Turner executives arecrediting the buzz associated with its Nextel Cup Pepsi 400 race on July 7 — whichwill not have traditional commercial ad pods — as the main reason behind astrong sales effort that sees only some scatter spots left for its six-raceNASCAR package this season.
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| Sponsors get a piece of the Pepsi 400 screen. |
So far, more than 50advertisers have bought spots for Turner’s slate of six races, paying onaverage about $80,000 per 30-second spot, which is flat with last year, sourcessaid.
Pricing for thecommercial-free Pepsi 400 is at a higher rate, though specific figures are notknown.
So far, nine advertisershave signed up for the network’s “Wide Open” coverage for the Pepsi 400. Thatnumber is down from the 10-12 advertisers Turner originally sought for thead-free race. But Turner executives say that nine is a good fit for this firstattempt, given the amount of legwork needed to produce branded spots that willappear along the lower portion of the screen.
“The amount of work thatgoes into these partnerships is enormous,” said Trish Frohman, executive vicepresident of Turner Sports Sales. “We are very comfortable with nine. If a 10thcomes in, that would be great, but we are not actively seeking it.”
Turner began pitching thisconcept to the ad community last fall for its entire six-race schedule.Ultimately, it settled on the “Wide Open” ad sales effort on its biggest race,but it hopes to offer it more next year.
Advertisers in the Pepsi400 will get branded content pieces produced by Turner as well as on-screengraphics. The messages will run on the bottom third of the screen. The telecastwill break for three minutes of commercials an hour, but those spots will besold only by cable operators.
The nine Pepsi 400advertisers are Pepsi, Sprint, Toyota, DirecTV, Autozone, Ford, Miller,Principal Financial and Subway.
This year marks the startof Turner’s new eight-year, $640 million rights deal with the stock-carcircuit.
