Despite some recent notable deals, there's still a lot of pain across NASCAR team race shops. The growing frustration is leading to increasingly louder calls for a new model. Does NASCAR have a responsibility to broker and/or steer companies interested in commercial opportunities with the sport toward teams? That's the question that Josh Corder of bleacherreport.com asks.
Instead of steering these companies toward underfunded teams, NASCAR takes their sponsorship dollars and stamps them as The Official Toilet Paper of NASCAR. NASCAR could help their sport by acting as a mediator between these companies and, for example, broker O'Reilly Auto Parts a package deal that includes limited sponsorship of Robby Gordon for a handful of races AND the title of "Official Auto Parts Store of NASCAR". Robby keeps racing, NASCAR gets a cut of the pie and O'Reilly gets some guarantee on the exposure they are going to receive each and every week. Plus, they get a face to put with their marketing campaign.
It's an interesting idea and one that depending on the state of sponsorship in 2010 could result in a new structure that in some ways models the traditional idea of revenue sharing. Back in September, team management and Nascar officials met to discuss the viability of such an arrangement.
What do you think? Could aggregating rights across teams help raise the commercial tide for all of Nascar's boats?