Sprint’s departure as NASCAR title sponsor opened the wireless category for teams and tracks to sell, but nearing the midway point of the season, no major deals have been signed.
Meanwhile, Sprint’s absence at tracks has brought some grumbling over the level of wireless connectivity at various NASCAR events.
Sprint left last year after a 13-year run as title sponsor of the Cup Series, re-opening the opportunity to let other telecom brands advertise. But so far AT&T and T-Mobile have not entered, and Verizon has only had one interaction, with driver Joey Logano in a STEM-focused ad campaign. Most pre-paid wireless brands have also stayed away, though Straight Talk Wireless did become an advertiser with International Speedway Corp.’s Motor Racing Network.
On the connectivity side, no telecom companies have made any major new investments at the two major track operators’ venues this year, though some have added their service to pre-existing networks. Some Sprint users have complained about worse coverage this year without Sprint’s four to six mobile cellular towers that it used to bring to all 38 Cup Series weekends.
The lack of major investment this year is due in part to carriers being in a transition period as they get ready to switch over from 4G to 5G networks, said Craig Neeb, executive vice president and chief development and digital officer for ISC, citing conversations he’s had with carriers. ISC owns 12 tracks on the NASCAR circuit.
“I think the carriers are the ones who are kind of struggling with all of the investments they’ve made over the last several years in sports and technology — and now, they’re finding that all of this could be outdated and are having to look at their capital needs over the next several years,” Neeb said. “They’re struggling to figure out if they have the discretionary dollars in this space, and then this whole unlimited-data wars has really narrowed their margins quite a bit as well, so I don’t think it’s an issue of carriers being afraid to be a part of the sport.”
Major carriers also are heavily invested in sponsorships with other major sports properties. Verizon has deals with the NFL, NBA and IndyCar Series; T-Mobile sponsors MLB; and AT&T has deep ties in the college space and several marquee naming-rights deals.
Some executives noted that 2017 was expected to shape up as a dust-settling period given that Sprint, along with predecessor Nextel, had such an exclusive grip on the sport. On top of the restrictions on marketing, rival carriers couldn’t bring mobile towers to tracks until NASCAR and Sprint agreed in 2013 to dial back that aspect of Sprint’s exclusivity, according to sources.
“If you look historically, it’s very rare in a category that a major player leaves the sport and a competitor jumps right back in,” said Mike Burch, chief strategy officer of Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns eight tracks. “There’s usually a little time to let the brand association fade; it’s rare you see Home Depot following Lowe’s on a specific asset or sport.”
The structure of tracks’ current deals on the connectivity side could be hamstringing developments in the space. SMI struck a deal in recent years with Verizon to add a distributed antenna system (DAS) to all of its speedways, while ISC struck a similar deal with American Towers Inc. that has seen DAS projects at five of its speedways. A source said those deals prevent rival carriers from bringing mobile towers to tracks in order to entice those carriers to join the DAS networks to help recoup the investment.
While outfitting every venue with increased connectivity would be pricey, the status quo leaves some important tracks without enhanced service. At Talladega Superspeedway’s spring race earlier this month, NASCAR writer Jeff Gluck reported that his Sprint service was “terrible,” and that he “saw plenty of chatter from other people who had similar problems.”
ISC has a deal with Arris to outfit all tracks with Wi-Fi. ISC is also working on a new mobile Wi-Fi solution that could mitigate wider connectivity issues for fans.
