Revell, Inc. Tosses NASCAR Under the Bus
While the rest of corporate America is scaling back in the face of a struggling economy, NASCAR apparently is putting pressure on some of its business partners.
Revell, Inc. a company that makes plastic models, is dropping NASCAR from its list of products after it couldn’t reach a licensing agreement with the sanctioning body.
The model company wrote the following on its Web site:
“Over the years, we have been pleased to provide you with the finest NASCAR plastic model kits featuring the most popular drivers. Regrettably, however, over the last several years, we have faced increasing licensing costs that are greater than our increase in sales.
Despite our best efforts to secure reasonable licensing terms for NASCAR model kits in general, and the Car of Tomorrow in particular, we have been unable to develop a program that allows us to market the product at a viable price point.
Consequently, we will not be issuing a kit on the Car of Tomorrow and, in fact, will be exiting the NASCAR business altogether. We will discontinue all sales of NASCAR plastic kits by February 28, 2009.”
As someone who spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours of my youth building model kits of various racing and classic cars this announcement pains the heart a bit. Just what are the bobbleheads in Daytona and Charlotte thinking?
Not every kid, or adult for that matter, can afford the high prices asked for diecast models. The build-it-yourself models are not only cheaper to purchase but have the added benefit of giving a kid something to do other than stare at a static model.
At a time when every form of racing is seeing financial trouble on some level NASCAR’s dim-bulbs are requesting ever increasing licensing fees.
It makes zero sense, not one bit.
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No plastic models! Egad, what excuse will I have for buying WAAAAY more glue than needed to put my cars together??
In all seriousness how much money could they possible extract from a company like Revell? Wouldn’t the positive marketing created by having your product available to kids outweigh any income loss NASCAR might suffer?
Poor decision no matter how you look at it.
You would think that George.
But we, possessing common sense, actually see that downside in addition to the fact these dim-bulbs are losing sponsorship money from other revenue steams all the while trying (unsuccessfully) to shake-down Revell for increased fees.