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Marketing and the
Future Health of Drag Racing Tom Compton Represents the NHRA at Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal Motorsports Forum Story and photos by Matthew Brammer Basking in the glory of the national spotlight, savoring the successful changeover of title sponsors and championship points structure, even being mentioned as a critical component to winning a political race, NASCAR officials are attempting to add ingredients that already make the National Hot Rod Association’s national events unique: open pits, driver access and night time races.
The fifth annual Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal Motorsports Forum was convened at the luxurious Westin New York at Times Square, and titled: "A Brave New World: New Rules, New Contracts, New Faces and New Places." The host’s thinly veiled attempt to include all motorsports in their NASCAR love-fest was quickly destroyed as the first key note speaker, NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France, commented on the state of his series. "The year 2004 saw more change than any other year for NASCAR. It was one of the best years we have ever had, and I firmly believe that NASCAR will continue to be the leader in motorsports and lifestyle for years to come," France said. "Underneath the many changes in our sport, there is a simple principle that drives our business, and that principle is our creating a compelling racing product that draws and maintains the attention and excitement of our millions of fans. a d v e
r t i s e m e n t "In order for us to continue to grow, we have to keep delivering on the promise of creating the best and most thrilling racing in the world," he said. "It all starts with a core racing product, and it’s that product which we must continue to invest in."
NASCAR sets its sights on increasing access to the pits and drivers France and his associates shared their excitement about new developments in their series, including creating a walkway in Daytona where fans can walk through the ‘hot’ pits and watch the action without interfering or interrupting the teams. Neil Goldberg, NASCAR on FOX producer, explained, "To NASCAR’s credit, they are taking facilities, Daytona being the most recent, and creating a fan-friendly environment. They have leveled the entire infield at Daytona and created a fan-interactive ‘fan walk’ where they can get right close to everything they’d want to be, but everyone can still do their job and not be interrupted. It’s an incredible layout, to the point where they actually filled up the lake in order to create more room for the fans to be able to get into the infield." Open pits are definitely not a new concept to the NHRA — quite the opposite. Every NHRA event ticket includes a pit pass where fans can interact with their favorite drivers, watch as teams work on the cars, and enjoy all of the sights and sounds of the NHRA experience. NHRA President, Tom Compton, was quick to identify this fan-friendly position. While relegated to addressing only a break-out session of the conference, Compton sung the praises of NHRA drag racing, hoping to plant seeds of interest in the minds of national media, NASCAR sponsors, team owners and auto manufacturing representatives. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t "The format of our sport right now is professional racing mixed with sportsman racing. When the professional racing is over, some people stay, and some go into the open pits. Every ticket has a pit pass in the NHRA, and the fans and drivers interact together. "The drivers know how important that is, especially at this stage in the sport. Hopefully it will stay that way, especially when we get as big as NASCAR. "But for the fans, I’d say its fifty percent of the show for them to go out into the pit area, and watch them rebuild the engines in between rounds — there’s 75 minutes to do that — and get autographs from the drivers who do go out to the ropes and interact with the fans. ESPN does a great job of capturing that important aspect of the sport by going into those pit areas, both watching what they do on the cars and showing the fans and how close they can get to the stars," Compton said.
Quick to support the NHRA was Speed Channel Sr. Vice President and Executive Producer, Rick Miner. "If there was a way to have the vibration at Bristol, or the vibration of the drag strip transmitted, our fan base would be just flying." Compton added: "It’s definitely a ‘full-body’ experience." When the panel was pushed to identify the value of any series other than NASCAR, Miner said, "I think there certainly is value, but it is much more market specific. It is a much narrower market. There are advertisers who frankly are not interested in being in NASCAR-related programming because the demographics don't match in their minds. The issue is one of how you make the economic model work." "The NHRA is much closer to NASCAR. The issue is one of how you make the economic model work, and the NHRA is, I think, much closer to NASCAR on that side, in terms of success and their broad fan base than club sports car racing or hill climbing. Those are very specific audiences. With small numbers and with a very small audience, the issue is the large production costs. The cost to produce road racing is extremely expensive, you know, you get 18 or 20 cameras, for an extended period of time. The economic model is very difficult. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t "The key is to involve your broadcast partner early. You need to build your deals with your potential sponsors to require a broadcast commitment, the way NASCAR has. Because, frankly, if the advertiser is going to get that logo recognition and get that on-air without buying it from the broadcast partner, why would they buy it? And it they are not going to buy it from us, how are we going to recoup our broadcast expenses?" Compton responded, "We have that requirement [of broadcast commitments] in a number of areas, but we have such a loyal fan base, very similar to NASCAR’s. In fact, the latest statistics and market research I saw, they were neck and neck with us in terms of loyalty. I mean, there was no other sport even close. "We have a number of sponsors, title rights sponsors, folks that wouldn’t play anywhere else. The index of our fan and how targeted it is, given the product like auto-parts stores and things like that where we index two- to three hundred times more than the general population, we are able to do very well with them and have been able to add value." He continued, "I’d like to remind everyone in the room that we were rated the number one value in all of sports, not just motorsports, last year by Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal. So, the value relationship is there, the fan base is very targeted and extremely loyal, and I think the sponsors that are involved in the NHRA recognize that. "That’s why we are growing," Compton said.
Night time racing Moderator Andy Bernstein questioned the panelists regarding NASCAR’s recent foray into televised night races. He asked, "What is your opinion of night time races? I know on the Turner/NBC side there is really support for night races." FOX’s Neil Goldberg, responded, "They’re spectacular. There’s the fact that during night races, everything — the cars, the signs — looks brighter. It’s a visual experience. It’s all about scheduling. I know FOX loves night racing. It has been very successful. It’s what makes sense in putting it on TV for the best time-frame. I think you’ll see more night races." After the panel discussion, Compton commented, "We’ve been night racing for years. Friday nights are often our most attended runs of an event. It’s definitely a fan favorite." Coca-Cola to the rescue With the rising costs of racing extending beyond series lines, several major NASCAR sponsors joined together during a break-out session to discuss cost containment and Return on Investment. Participating on the panel were the Director of Sponsorships for M&M’s and Snicker’s (Masterfoods), William Clements; Director of Sponsorship for ALLTEL Communications, Lucie Pathmann; and NASCAR Director for the Coca-Cola company, Bobby Patton. The panel moderator, Abraham Madkour — Executive Editor of the SportsBusiness Journal — asked the panelists if they would consider changing their sponsorship to a different series, implying the BUSCH or Craftsman Truck series, as a vehicle for their company’s marketing efforts. "Not at all," M&M’s William Clements exclaimed. "Top series for the top brand." a
d v e r t i s e m e n t ALLTEL’s Lucie Pathmann chimed in, "Our main goal with our racing sponsorship at first was to make us look like a larger carrier, and I think racing has done that for us. It makes us look like we're a national player when we're not. When we signed with Penske, we also wanted to run up front. We felt that with our competitors that were in the sport at the time, if we were running up at the top, customers would look at our company as a leading telecommunications company." Coke’s Bobby Patton, however, told a different story. "We’ve had great success with other series’ like the NHRA and our Powerade brand. For us, we’ve done very well with the NHRA." Later, NHRA Vice President of Sales and Business Development, John Covarrubias, said: "With all those other sponsor’s attitudes, it was great to hear Coke standing with us. "We have a hard job ahead of us — educating sponsors about the values available in the NHRA, bit I think we’re making good ground," Covarrubias said. Tom Compton said: "We definitely try to take advantage of opportunities like this, and educate and inform the media and sponsors about our sport. We’re not where NASCAR is yet, but we’re moving forward." "We are at a completely different sport than NASCAR," said
Compton. "Our first exclusive television contract was just your years
ago. We’re at a different stage right now, but the future looks very
bright for the NHRA."
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