People and Pop Culture
Closing Shot: Lone Wolves
NASCAR is back to racing, and although fans can’t attend, the tap has reopened to media and sponsorship streams, and provided the sports industry at large much-needed live action.
Social distancing was in full force last week as NASCAR drivers returned to racing with two Cup Series events at South Carolina’s Darlington Raceway.getty images
It was a race unlike any other. The return of NASCAR at Darlington Raceway last week jump-started the sport’s economy, with media and sponsor dollars flowing again, despite missing out on ticket revenue.
The Real Heroes 400 at the South Carolina track on May 17 came before no fans in the stands due to the coronavirus pandemic. The first live NASCAR race in two months drew a healthy 3.7 rating and 6.3 million viewers on Fox.
The sport’s return allowed sponsors to start activating and Fox Sports to start selling advertising again, with even Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch commenting in the run-up to the event about how critical that was for the network.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 4 Ford driven by Kevin Harvick won the Darlington race, and his sponsor Busch Beer was among those taking advantage of NASCAR’s restart. Like all others at the track that weekend, Harvick was required to wear a mask at all times when his helmet wasn’t on. It made for an unusual victory lane celebration, with Harvick standing solo with his face covering on.
On its race-winning car, Busch advertised a new #YourFaceHere activation where people sent in a picture of themselves with a Busch Light logo to the brand’s social media accounts. Busch will choose 10 winners whose face will be on Harvick’s No. 4 car for this Wednesday night’s race at Charlotte.
“The entire sports world was thrilled to see NASCAR return last weekend and the Busch team was a huge winner by many measures,” said Nick Kelly, vice president of partnerships, beer culture and community for Anheuser-Busch InBev. “With huge ratings, a marketing campaign that engaged fans all race long and the amazing performance by Kevin Harvick, it helped Busch become culturally relevant all weekend.”
Several other sponsors took advantage of the opportunity to thank health care workers and other front-line heroes, including M&M’s, Caterpillar and DeWalt. The race itself was named for The Real Heroes Project, the new joint effort among more than a dozen leagues to recognize health care workers.
Blue Emu found its way back into the spotlight in an unexpected way after a car rubbed part of the track wall where the company had signage, tearing off pieces that got stuck on the front of a race car, leading to several television highlights.
On social media, Busch saw the second most value of any sponsor during the race, according to data provided to Sports Business Journal by valuation firm Zoomph.
Xfinity earned the most equivalent value at $524,383, followed by Busch at $372,019 and Coca-Cola in third at $218,870. For the race overall, Zoomph said the event earned about $1,903,000 in equivalent social media value, trailing only the Daytona 500 out of the four prior races that had been run before the shutdown started.
NASCAR was set to continue its season at Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend before the midweek event is held this Wednesday.
