Busch will soon be back at the track in NASCAR.
Starting next year, Anheuser-Busch will switch the brand affiliated with its various NASCAR sponsorships, with Budweiser out and Busch — which was deeply invested in the sport for years — back in.
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Busch was last involved in NASCAR in 2007, when it ended its naming rights of NASCAR's secondary series.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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The move comes after A-B conducted a comprehensive reassessment of its NASCAR deals, some of which were up for renewal in coming years, according to sources. Those agreements include a primary sponsorship of Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 4 Chevrolet, which has been valued at $11 million to $13 million annually, as well as a range of assets with numerous International Speedway Corp. tracks, most notably the Bud Duel during Budweiser Speedweeks, the season-opening, nonpoints races held annually at Daytona International Speedway. A-B also has a nonexclusive deal with the Speedway Motorsports Inc.-owned Bristol Motor Speedway to sponsor the venue’s Bud Tap Room and Bud Tap Room Lounge.
During the internal evaluation, A-B studied numerous options, including a possible exit from the sport, sources said, but it ultimately decided to switch back to the Busch brand.
“NASCAR continues to be a priority platform for our beer portfolio,” said Lucas Herscovici, vice president of consumer connections at Anheuser-Busch, who acknowledged, “We will be shifting our brand equity in [Kevin] Harvick’s car and team from Budweiser to our Busch beer portfolio for the 2016 NASCAR season. The Busch brand is well positioned for this partnership given the brand’s storied history with the sport.”
The Busch brand is a familiar one in NASCAR. It was last involved in the sport in 2007, when it ended its naming rights of NASCAR’s secondary series. Those rights were then picked up by Nationwide and later by Xfinity.
A-B started sponsoring the series in 1982, when it was called the NASCAR Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series. It was renamed the Busch Grand National Series two years later, and ultimately shortened to the Busch Series in 2004. But the Busch brand has remained ingrained in NASCAR to the point that some still erroneously call what is now the Xfinity Series the Busch Series nearly a decade after Busch left the sport.
A-B, which remains the largest brewer in the U.S., is making the switch at a time when many of its brands are fighting back against the craft beer trend. Domestic economy lagers saw a total sales volume decline of 3 percent in 2014, according to a recently released Euromonitor report. That drop, combined with a decline among domestic midpriced lagers, resulted in the two combined categories losing total beer volume share of 2 percentage points, from 69 percent in 2013 to 67 percent last year.
Why A-B made the decision to return to the Busch brand to support its NASCAR partnerships was unclear, but the brand was likely seen as a better fit with NASCAR’s fan base. The company is expected to formally announce its marketing plans for next year in the next month or two.
