NASCAR’s Sponsor Food fight
A couple notes on the current sponsorship bruhaha that has NASCAR and AT&T embroiled in a heated exchange and has led both sides to pull the retainer strings holding their individual bevy of shysters at bay during more normal times.
As recently as a few minutes ago I’ve come down on the side of NASCAR and NEXTEL. That defense has been based on “what goes around, comes around.”
When NASCAR and NEXTEL walked down the aisle together (and HWSBO caught the bouquet) they agreed to limit other telcoms ability to sponsor cars in the Cup Series. As part of the agreement ALLTEL’s sponsorship of the #12 was grandfathered in and remains a sponsor to this day.
Subsequent to that deal Sprint swallowed up NEXTEL and in a bit of merger prestidigitation the Cup Series will no longer be known as NEXTEL cup.
Now Sprint and NASCAR are squawking about the same type of merger that sees Cingular go the way of the Dodo Bird via an AT&T take over.
All legal issues aside, “what goes around, comes around.”
But hold on a hot second Bucko! There’s new evidence on the table and the Half-Vast Staff™ of FT have reversed themselves. As much as I dislike any team taking it in the shorts over sponsorship problems it would appear AT&T, RCR and ultimately the #31 are going to lose this fight. (We reserve the right to pull an NFL-like “double reverse.”)
The latest papers filed in the legal case claim NASCAR officials told Stan Sigman, the president and CEO of Cingular, five weeks ago that in April 2005 (more than a year before the Cingular-ATT merger was announced), George Pyne, NASCAR’s CEO at the time, told the Richard Childress-Burton team that it would not allow a change in paint scheme or logos if Cingular was bought and had its name changed.
Specifically Pyne wrote, “should Cingular be acquired by a third party, the Cingular brand is continually welcome as a team sponsor. However, should the company’s name change, we will not allow any paint scheme or branding on the car promoting this new name.
