By David G. Firestone
I hate to rehash an old topic on My Thoughts On, but given some recent news, I have no choice. I’m going to talk series sponsorships again. Monster Energy has decided to pull out of NASCAR’s Cup Series after 2019. There was an article today concerning the situation. According to Sports Business Insider, of the potential candidates, The Coca Cola Company is the top candidate for the Cup Series sponsorship, but which of their brands would sponsor the series remains to be seen.
While NASCAR has prospects for their Cup Series title, IndyCar is not as lucky. I’ve been talking about this for months, and we are no closer to finding a series sponsor now than they were then. Their $25 million price tag, coupled with low television ratings, and low attendance has made it clear that finding a series sponsorship will be impossible. IndyCar needs to figure out that they aren’t a box office draw, nor are they a television draw. $15 Million would have been a much more realistic figure, given how bad TV ratings really are.
I was thinking about this, and I had a question: Let’s say that Formula One decided for some reason, it needed a series sponsorship. How much would the series sponsorship cost for the sponsor in questions? F1’s tire supplier Pirelli is rumored to have spent as much as $110,000,000 in both technical and sponsorship costs. I imagine given how popular F1 is worldwide, that the cost could be around that much, given that television broadcasts can generate as many as 50,000,000 people worldwide.
Series sponsorships aren’t a minor issue, because the revenue generated by these sponsorships, the sanctioning bodies get not only financial help, but exposure and promotion as well. Since two of the most well-known racing series don’t have a deal locked up, it’s clear that the racing boom really is dead, and now racing sanctioning bodies need a more realistic budget.
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