Richard Childress Racing has signed with NASCAR to become the first team in the sport to use the sanctioning body’s digital media division to develop a new website.
The move marks the next step in NASCAR’s quest to have a fully centralized digital model similar to MLB Advanced Media.
The deal will be unveiled this week, and RCR’s site will have a soft launch in December before a full rollout in early 2017. Terms were not disclosed, but Colin Smith, vice president of NASCAR Digital Media, noted that the deal is a standard service model where RCR will pay for the site’s development and NASCAR will have a team dedicated to running it.
While RCR is the first to sign on, NASCAR is pitching other teams on similar deals. NASCAR is expanding the digital services team that works on these projects, though an exact staff count was not available. The sanctioning body hopes to have up to four teams signed up by mid-2017, and another three to four by the end of 2017. Also under consideration is adding links to all team sites on NASCAR.com next year, regardless of if the team sites are designed by NASCAR.
RCR’s site is currently maintained by RacerSites, which handles the back end operation while RCR has a few staff members who contribute to the front end. The site change is focused mostly on adding value for current partners and growing the team’s brand as opposed to increasing digital ad revenue, said Ben Schlosser, RCR’s chief marketing officer.
Schlosser noted that the team spoke with more than 10 agencies and firms during the RFP process, the large number because many bids were pricey and “we’re not going to spend $300,000 to build a website.”
Other companies in the race team website design space include Charlotte-based agencies LGA and Union, plus Wray Ward and CSE, but it could not be determined if they were part of the RFP process. NASCAR will develop the site to fit the team’s requested look and feel, and it will remain under the current rcrracing.com domain.
On top of fitting within RCR’s budget, which was not revealed, Schlosser said NASCAR offered two key areas of differentiation: shared content opportunities between NASCAR and RCR, and access to a host of analytical tools NASCAR uses when analyzing its own digital content.
“We’re able to piggyback on what they’ve already gotten — their content-management system and everything else — so we can remain current, because they’ve got to remain current,” he said. “Secondly, there are a lot of opportunities to collaborate on content, so I think whereas traditionally some of the other teams in the industry probably looked at it as, ‘I don’t want to compete with NASCAR,’ I see it as, ‘Why are we not working together?’”
RCR will still oversee the content and sales efforts for the site, while support and maintenance will be provided by NASCAR Digital Media.
Digital media has been a particular focus for teams and NASCAR this year after the implementation of the sport’s new charter system. With the sport’s TV money distribution set through 2024, digital media is seen as one of the best chances to grow revenue for teams.
