House Committee Kills NASCAR Sponsorship

I don't have a problem with this. 103 million taxpayers dollars spent on NASCAR sponsorship in three years? I can think of at least a dozen worthy programs to dispense with $103 million.

The National Guard spent $35.2 million in sponsorship for the No. 88 team alone in 2010; $28.8 million in 2011; and $26.5 million in 2012.

The Air National Guard spent $650,000 as title sponsor for one race, the 2010 Air Guard 400 at Richmond. For $650K the Guard got 439 recruitment leads. Of those, only 6 qualified as potential recruits.

NASCAR's version of the $640 toilet seat. 

Source

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Permalink Reply by WJM on May 18, 2012 at 12:37am

I only hate seeing my tax dollars pissed away.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Martinez on May 18, 2012 at 11:04am

Tell me about it. There is a road here in our area, It belongs to the county, It has a hole. I seen the cold patch crew out on the road sitting along side doing some patches. On my return about 40 minutes later I come around the corner and find myself behind the truck. I tail gated for some free rock undercoating. The F'er hit the hole and kept going and thinkin it was filled I was unprepared. Embellished ......no. Some of the biggest waste is people (I know a real slacker BABY a real SLACKER) with that "paycheck.................Or as I tell him his friggen Playcheck

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Permalink Reply by Vlad Rogers on May 18, 2012 at 1:37pm

Just something everybody should consider. Sponsors give race teams money because they do studies that show they do get a return on investment. You cant argue that, sponsoring NASCAR teams does work, it does bring in recruits.

Having said that, the wars are winding down, the focus on new recruits is winding down. Why spend 100M when you dont need new soldiers like we did when the wars were raging?

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Permalink Reply by Joan Forsythe on May 18, 2012 at 3:53pm

Why don't they take those $millions$ and start giving their employees i.e. soldiers, sailors, marines, cost guards a big raise, and improve on their poorly staffed, deplorable VA hospitals. Money much more well spent. Joan

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Permalink Reply by WJM on May 18, 2012 at 4:13pm

I'm a potential sponsor being pitched a $28.5 million deal for 40 NASCAR races. Or....I could take that $28.5 million and buy naming rights to the Boston Garden (Celtics, Bruins) at $2M a year, Chicago's arena (Bull, Blackhawks) $1.8M a year, Pittsburgh's stadium (Steelers) $3M a year, plus a couple of baseball parks for less than half of what a NASCAR teams wants to go in circles and receive an untold number of additional mentions and eyeballs in the largest media markets than any NASCAR telecast will promise me.

For another $5M I can have my logo prominently displayed on all 33 cars and driver/pit crew uniforms in the Indy 500.

I still have $8M to spend.....

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Permalink Reply by Vlad Rogers on May 18, 2012 at 4:23pm

Youre saying it would ONLY cost 2M a year to have the Boston Gardens name changed to The Army Garden for an entire year?

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Permalink Reply by alan4s on May 18, 2012 at 4:31pm

Pretty close. I googled "stadium naming rights cost", and this is from one of the results:

...The estimated amount of money that each team received for its current stadium- and arena-naming rights deals is just over $3.5 billion. The average cost and length of all the current naming rights deals is $54.6 million over 19 years. That works out to about $2.9 million a year.
The largest of these deals involves the Houston Texans. The Texans sold their stadium's naming rights to CenterPoint Energy's Reliant Energy for $300 million over 30 years. That's $10 million a year that the Texans will receive for the next 30 years. That kind of money can help Houston build and secure a competitive team for years to come.

On the flip side, American West Holdings Corporation paid only $26 million over 30 years to have an arena named after them, in which two major sports teams play (Phoenix Coyotes and Phoenix Suns). That comes out to just $866,667 a year.

Read more: http://www.askmen.com/sports/business_100/106_sports_business.html#...

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Permalink Reply by Vlad Rogers on May 18, 2012 at 4:56pm

After I posted this, I found Ask Mens article too. Theres got to be a reason why sponsoring Ryan Newman is better than having an arena named after your organization at a fraction of the price. I used to have a friend who worked at the California Speedway, she said the sponsor was responsible for other things like the fly-over, national anthem etc.

I do NOT know hahaha

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Permalink Reply by WJM on May 18, 2012 at 5:47pm

Tough decision. Do I put my company name on a major league sports venue year round for 30 years, on permanent display on the city skyline, with hundreds of thousands of people driving by annually, and my company name mentioned innumerable times during at least 200+ television and radio live broadcasts or put my company logo on a race car for 4-6 hours of sporadic mentions per week for 10 months?

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Permalink Reply by Josh Fisher on May 18, 2012 at 6:43pm

Does that sports venue deal come with countless diecast that will (if taken care of) have your companies logo on it for way more then 30 years? Does that sports stadium have T-shirts/hats/coats/mousepads/coasters/posters/video games, other merchandise/toys that display your companies logo? Does the stadium have "Show Stadiums" that go to various stores, fairs/festivals, and other events to show off your logo?

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Permalink Reply by WJM on May 18, 2012 at 9:10pm

Of course I would have my logo on all sorts of promotional items as most companies do as part of normal advertising. Diecast sales that go into NASCAR's pocket? No thanks. Show Stadiums? How about Stadium Shows? You know, concerts, conventions, trade shows, and other sports events like Supercross (televised live), Monster Truck, etc.

Also, what prevents me from buying a fleet of old Cup rollers for pennies on the dollar, slapping my own paint scheme on them and display them at the Broken Shovel Yodeling Festival? Not a damn thing.

I'm not slamming NASCAR racing. Just the cost of it.