NASCAR Advertising: How Sponsorship Drives the Sport

Introduction: NASCAR as One Big Commercial

In the book NASCAR for Dummies, Martin and Ruschak admit that "races are on TV, racetracks are in nearly every part of the country, and drivers have their pictures on cereal boxes and billboards." They also discuss corporate involvement in the sport and why "NASCAR is one big, uninterrupted commercial for motor oil, beer, and laundry detergent" (Martin, p. 5). The sport has been criticized for becoming one huge promotion, and no one knows what is being promoted more — the race itself or the sponsors of the race. The big networks also leverage the sport's popularity and its audience to sell advertising during commercial breaks, which often overshadow racing team sponsors. Some observers argue that the viewing audience ends up watching a television commercial rather than a race.

NASCAR stands for "National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing." It is a sanctioning body that oversees many types of racing across the country. The three top series under the NASCAR banner are the NEXTEL Cup Series, the Busch Series, and the Craftsman Truck Series.

H. A. Branham, the communications manager for NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series and a fan of the sport himself, has written a book with memorabilia about the sport — including NASCAR's first race report and a ticket to Dale Earnhardt's first Daytona 500 victory. The book is itself an advertisement for the race, which in turn is an advertisement for thousands of products. "Even founder Bill France, Sr. couldn't have imagined just how huge his creation would become," said Branham (2006, p. 5).

Television Rights and the Money Behind the Sport

NASCAR has introduced a new points system to make a ten-car race the marquee event of the season. An "intense bidding war for the television rights to the hottest ticket in major league sports has produced staggering results: The FOX and NBC-TBS networks struck a deal according to which they will fork over $2.8 billion over the next six years to televise NASCAR's races, beginning in 2001" (Menzer, p. 33). That averages out to more than $466 million a year. By comparison, TV rights to twenty-eight NASCAR races brought in a mere $3 million during the 1985 season, fifteen years earlier.

David Poole points out that in 1960 the average payout for the Grand National Series was $13,601, and Rex White, the sport's national champion, took home $57,525 annually. A decade later, Bobby Isaac won $199,600. It was not until 1985 that a race actually paid out $1 million in prize money. Although networks such as ABC aired taped portions of races on Wide World of Sports in the early 1970s, CBS decided to broadcast the Daytona 500 live from start to finish in 1979, and the sport was on its way. By 1995, every Winston Cup race was shown live on several networks, and the national media turned serious attention to NASCAR.

Some statistics cited in Mark Martin's book explain why NASCAR has become a national phenomenon: it is the "#1 sport in brand loyalty of fans, #2 rated sport on television [second only to the NFL], over $2 billion in licensed sales, [and has] 75 million fans" (p. 9). More than 280 million viewers now tune into NASCAR Cup Series events on television every year. These figures make one point unmistakably clear: NASCAR is as much about publicity and sales as it is about sport.

Tracks, Venues, and the Business of Racing

In his book The NASCAR Way: The Business that Drives the Sport, Hagstrom explains that the money fueling stock car racing exists because there are "forty-two teams on the same field at the same time" (p. 159). He illustrates the culture of the sport with a story about a NASCAR official who had flagged races at Darlington for many years. When the official asked Petty why all the drivers hugged the wall at turn four — where a dozen cars are packed closely together going around the curve — Petty replied with a grin: "it was because the closer you are to the wall the less it hurts when you hit it" (Hagstrom, p. 6).

Bruton Smith, chairman and chief operating officer of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., bought one track in 1966 when it had a seating capacity of 71,000. It now seats 147,000, plus luxury skyboxes that are perpetually sold out. "We stopped at eighty-four thousand people," said Smith about the waiting list for the skyboxes, noting that number would last a lifetime (Menzer, p. 34).

Daytona International Speedway is the best-known of all NASCAR tracks, but the Indianapolis track is home to the Brickyard 400 every August and rivals the famous Indy 500 in popularity. Other notable venues include Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, and Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina. None, however, are quite like Bristol. Bristol has seats in the danger zone as well as seats far from the action, where spectators can see the entire track, including the pits. Bristol is not the biggest or the best track, but it is short in the tradition of the old days — average lap speed is 82 mph — yet it draws 150,000 cheering fans for hours during the race.

Advertising is rampant at these venues. A track can be rented for $4,500 a day, TV commercials cost $3,000 a day, and NASCAR testing costs $1,500 a day. Private parties run $1,000 to $2,500 a day for 100 to 500 guests, with additional charges for lighting the infield or the entire facility ($1,850) and a $500 surcharge on weekends.

Conclusion: Advertising as NASCAR's Engine

Advertising, something that is common to the eye in the United States, has become somewhat of a joke among NASCAR fans. Even at the national and multinational level, the big money rolls in to reach the enormous audience, and many layers of commercial interest are involved. The sport has transformed into one extended commercial — but perhaps this was always intended, and it has certainly not had the effect of driving away the viewing audience. If anything, the loyalty of NASCAR fans to the brands associated with their favorite drivers suggests that the commercial and the athletic are so thoroughly intertwined in this sport that neither can exist without the other.