Efforts at greater collaboration among NASCAR stakeholders continued behind the scenes during Daytona’s Speedweeks as the sport’s new track council met for the first time.
The track council’s formation came as a result of the five-year sanctioning agreements that track operators signed with NASCAR in October of last year, which among other things locked in race dates and guaranteed income over a five-year period after previously doling those out only on an annual basis. The track council’s creation comes on the heels of the addition of the Race Team Alliance, a drivers council and a manufacturers council in recent years.
The track council, which met amid Daytona International Speedway’s unveiling of its newly renovated frontstretch, is meant to increase communication, cooperation and cohesiveness among the sport’s multiple track operators. Sources said the council is made up of a NASCAR executive, three representatives from International Speedway Corp., three from Speedway Motorsports Inc. and one representative each from independent tracks that host NASCAR races like Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Pocono Raceway, Dover Speedway, Road America and Gateway Motorsports Park.
Sources said attendees at the first meeting included
Brent Dewar, chief operating officer of NASCAR;
Chris Powell, president of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which is owned by SMI;
Mike Burch, senior vice president of national sales and marketing for SMI; Don Hawk, senior vice president of business affairs of SMI;
Doug Boles, president of IMS;
Brandon Igdalsky, president and CEO of Pocono;
Michael Tatoian, president of Dover; and
Curtis Francois, president of Gateway. ISC representatives in attendance could not be confirmed, and
Marcus Smith, SMI’s CEO, was unable to attend because of a recent knee injury.
“Last week in Daytona, NASCAR and representatives from a wide range of racetracks hosting national series events met formally for the first time as members of the newly formed NASCAR Track Council,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer, in a statement to SBJ. “The meeting is the latest example of the increased collaboration and continued positive dialogue NASCAR is having with the industry to help drive the sport forward.”
A source said the first meeting was largely organizational in nature.
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SPRINT TO THE FINISH: With Sprint’s title sponsorship deal ending this year, attention in the sport is shifting toward NASCAR’s Cup naming-rights hunt. The sanctioning body is in talks with multiple companies but not on the verge of landing a new partner, sources said.
NASCAR went to market last year seeking $100 million over 10 years, sources said at the time, with $50 million for rights and $50 million for activation. While the precise number that NASCAR currently is asking remains unclear, numerous industry executives pointed out that it’s a buyer’s market, which indicates the asking price has gone down.
It’s thought that NASCAR is searching multiple categories to find a new partner and not limiting itself to replacing Sprint with another telecom or phone-related sponsor. However, sources noted that with Sprint having had those rights locked up exclusively for 13 years, many companies in those spaces have a potential appetite to get involved in the sport.
While there is no set time NASCAR needs to land a new sponsor, most industry executives think the new brand needs to be nailed down by the end of the second fiscal quarter in order to give the brand, NASCAR and the industry enough time to prepare for a changeover that is extremely intricate logistically.
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SOCIALLY SPEAKING: An enthralling finish was not enough to boost the Daytona 500’s TV ratings this year for NASCAR and broadcaster Fox Sports. But coupled with a strong 6.6 final Nielsen rating and an average of 11.4 million viewers, which was the highest for a sporting event that weekend and the most since the Super Bowl, plus legitimately large digital/social numbers, industry executives remained pleased with consumption for the sport’s biggest event.
“Sunday was especially a huge success for our social platforms, with race-day conversation around the Daytona 500 at an all-time high,” said Steve Phelps, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer.
The sanctioning body unleashed a massive marketing campaign to make the race a trending topic on social media throughout the week and particularly on race day. According to NASCAR, the race set a record for the most social impressions generated in one day on its social channels — no surprise after Fox elicited social influencers such as Justin Bieber to tweet to his 76 million followers about the race — and the figures were up 63 percent versus last year.
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DAYTONA SMILING: ISC executives were pleased with the way the weekend unfolded, from having a sold-out crowd of 101,000 and a photo finish on Sunday to not having any major incidents during Speedweeks.
“There’s so many things you worry about going into the event, and so many things went well,” said track President Joie Chitwood. “The weather was fantastic, we had great racing on the track, I thought that the team really learned and got better at operating the new venue … when I think about all those things put together, truly the stars aligned to give us a very special event.”
Crowds roamed along Daytona’s newly tweaked midway, which went from being isolated to an area in Turn 4 to a long line along the fan thoroughfare that stretched almost the entire nearly mile-long frontstretch. The change in the layout was a late — and highly successful — addition to the $400 million Daytona Rising renovation project, Chitwood said.
“What I really liked about it is every partner, every display, had frontage on the fan thoroughfare,” he said. “Before, when the midway was in the Turn 4 area, if you were on the back row, [you could get a bit buried]. But now … everyone has a front-row space.”
Brands that had large crowds throughout the weekend included Bass Pro Shops, Smithfield Foods, Can-Am and Anheuser-Busch’s Busch Beer tent. A-B deployed a particularly robust activation campaign for Busch during the week because the beer maker wanted to make a splash with the brand, which was re-entering the sport after exiting in favor of Budweiser in 2007.
On top of the Busch tent, other Busch activations included a giant inflatable can at one of the track’s main entrances, a branded bar inside the renovated facility that offers up lounge chairs and cornhole games, and a branding takeover at one of the more popular hotels on Daytona 500 weekend, the Hilton Daytona Beach Resort.
Another brand that had a sizable presence was newcomer Nature’s Bakery, which enters the sport this year through its primary sponsorship of Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 10 Chevy driven by Danica Patrick. The brand, which is working with Just Marketing International on its activation strategy, gave away more than 116,000 samples of its fig bars during the weekend.
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Furniture Row Racing came just short of a win, but still elevated its status in the garage.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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SO CLOSE: Inches away from what would have been a historic victory with driver
Martin Truex Jr., it might be easy to think that Furniture Row Racing is feeling down on its luck. But for the Denver-based team — the only Sprint Cup team based west of the Mississippi River — the bitter pill was easier to swallow since FRR showed yet another example of punching above its weight.
The single-car team made NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup last year, then aligned with Toyota after not getting what it perceived to be enough support from Chevrolet. After nearly winning the sport’s biggest race, 2016 is shaping up to be a big year for Furniture Row.
“In the last five months, we’ve added Toyota, Bass Pro Shops, Auto Owners Insurance — and we’ve got several other really good conversations going that could become relevant in the next couple months,” said Neale Hood, FRR’s director of sales and marketing, who came to the team last year from Michael Waltrip Racing following MWR’s shuttering.
FRR has two other advantages this year to help solidify its status as NASCAR’s most legitimate mid-major.
For years, team owner Barney Visser used the No. 78 entry to promote his Denver-based Furniture Row Cos. Now FRR is more open to selling sponsorship, leaving 26 races available for outside funding. The team asks $400,000 to $450,000 per race for primary sponsorship, according to a source.
With that, Hood said FRR’s status as the only Sprint Cup team based out West can be a positive, pitching West Coast- and Midwestern-based companies as the team that can most closely represent their values, like it did last year by signing a deal with Denver-based Western Union.
“It’s very unique — you really never find a top-tier team that has 26 race markets open,” Hood said. “If you’re a business looking to get into the sport, you can say, ‘Wait a minute, I can get with a driver who has a good chance of making the Chase and he has Chase races available?’ You could really do well from a media standpoint.”
