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Since it seems that the word ?control? is such a hot-button term around here, it might be a good idea to explore the word and its meaning a little more deeply as it applies to motorsports and sponsorship
BTW, since it seems that my use of the terms, I, we, me, and the AFR seems to confuse people so I am no longer going to use any reference to rally or the AFR when I make my posts. All of my points can be illustrated using a ficticious company and I will use NASCAR for all of my examples since their inner-workings are fairly well-known and therefore easy to understand.
First I stand by my statement that any sponsor gets some degree of control over the team or organization they are sponsoring. He is a clip from an earlier post.
"All sponsors of any kind get some sort of control. If (a company) were to sponsor your car (they) would be able to tell you who your driver/co-driver will or won't be, what events you will run, how you will paint your car, etc. If you didn't let (them) then you would get no sponsorship. That's control."
The same goes in NASCAR. If I were the owner of ACME cellular and I sponsored a car in the Winston Cup series I would have almost complete control over what that team did. If I didn?t like a crew member they would be removed even though they work for the race team and not directly for me. I could tell the team how to paint the car, what events to enter, and pick who the driver would be. There are almost no limits on the demands a sponsor in the Winston Cup series can make.
The series sponsors work the same way. Nextel has a lot of control over how the series is run. Use the above example. Let?s say you were a team owner who was one day away from shutting his doors due to lack of sponsorship. Let?s say I, as the owner of ACME Cellular, came to you and offered you 20 million dollars to run a car for me next year. You are saved, right?
Wrong! Nextel, as the series sponsor, has the power to prevent other competiting phone companies from participating in the series. ACME can't come in. You lose your sponsor and your family starves. Is that fair? Not if you are the team owner. But that?s the way it is in every form of professional motorsports in the world.
Another example, let?s say Nextel wants to keep the Winston Million All-Star race. But they want to re-name the Nextel Million. Done. Oh by the way, since Nextel?s HQ is in Virginia they want to move the race from Charlotte to Richmond. Guess what? It will be done too. Does Lowe?s Motor Speedway get screwed out of millions of dollars in the process? Yes. That?s business. It?s another form of control. There are also numerous examples of sponsor control in the rulebook as well. In fact, if pressed, I can give you hours upon hours of examples of sponsor control in professional motorsports.
But it isn?t as simple as that. I have only illustrated the sponsor?s control. I'm surprised no one really called me on that specifically.
The truth is that EVERYONE involved in the sport has control over it. If the team owners are unhappy they can refuse to enter the races and the sport goes under. If the drivers refuse to drive the cars the race can?t go on and the sport goes under. If the fans refuse to come to the races or watch them on TV no-one will sponsor them and the sport goes under. The sanctioning body can control a lot as well.
Everyone has an equal amount of control over the sport. It?s like a big game of paper/rock/scissors. No one entity can survive alone or defeat another.
It all comes to a head, however, at the sanctioning body. They are the ones that have to keep this wide variety of people, with all of their conflicting views, happy enough to keep them coming back. NASCAR has done a great job with this over the past 30 years despite all the problems they faced along the way. Sanctioning bodies have the toughest job of all.
Everyone who reads this forum has control over the sport of rally. I still stand by my other statement that I haven't yet met anyone in this sport, no matter what side of the issue, who I thought was evil or was trying to do the sport harm for their own personal gain.
Sponsoring in motorsports is a lot like buying a stock. A sponsor invests their money at the beginning of the year. That money is spent no matter what happens that year. If the series gets bigger, and more people participate, watch it on TV, go to an event, or it gets a lot more media coverage then the value of that "stock" went up. You got more than you paid for. The opposite can happen too. I don't think that any of the people involved in CART this year really felt that it was a good investment. Maybe some of the minor players but not the major ones.
Series sponsors have a stake in improving the series. That means they want close racing, lots of competitors, drama, fans, media, and tv ratings. Smart sponsors know they have to try to take care of everyone involved with their sanctioning body to make that happen.
Greg
BTW, since it seems that my use of the terms, I, we, me, and the AFR seems to confuse people so I am no longer going to use any reference to rally or the AFR when I make my posts. All of my points can be illustrated using a ficticious company and I will use NASCAR for all of my examples since their inner-workings are fairly well-known and therefore easy to understand.
First I stand by my statement that any sponsor gets some degree of control over the team or organization they are sponsoring. He is a clip from an earlier post.
"All sponsors of any kind get some sort of control. If (a company) were to sponsor your car (they) would be able to tell you who your driver/co-driver will or won't be, what events you will run, how you will paint your car, etc. If you didn't let (them) then you would get no sponsorship. That's control."
The same goes in NASCAR. If I were the owner of ACME cellular and I sponsored a car in the Winston Cup series I would have almost complete control over what that team did. If I didn?t like a crew member they would be removed even though they work for the race team and not directly for me. I could tell the team how to paint the car, what events to enter, and pick who the driver would be. There are almost no limits on the demands a sponsor in the Winston Cup series can make.
The series sponsors work the same way. Nextel has a lot of control over how the series is run. Use the above example. Let?s say you were a team owner who was one day away from shutting his doors due to lack of sponsorship. Let?s say I, as the owner of ACME Cellular, came to you and offered you 20 million dollars to run a car for me next year. You are saved, right?
Wrong! Nextel, as the series sponsor, has the power to prevent other competiting phone companies from participating in the series. ACME can't come in. You lose your sponsor and your family starves. Is that fair? Not if you are the team owner. But that?s the way it is in every form of professional motorsports in the world.
Another example, let?s say Nextel wants to keep the Winston Million All-Star race. But they want to re-name the Nextel Million. Done. Oh by the way, since Nextel?s HQ is in Virginia they want to move the race from Charlotte to Richmond. Guess what? It will be done too. Does Lowe?s Motor Speedway get screwed out of millions of dollars in the process? Yes. That?s business. It?s another form of control. There are also numerous examples of sponsor control in the rulebook as well. In fact, if pressed, I can give you hours upon hours of examples of sponsor control in professional motorsports.
But it isn?t as simple as that. I have only illustrated the sponsor?s control. I'm surprised no one really called me on that specifically.
The truth is that EVERYONE involved in the sport has control over it. If the team owners are unhappy they can refuse to enter the races and the sport goes under. If the drivers refuse to drive the cars the race can?t go on and the sport goes under. If the fans refuse to come to the races or watch them on TV no-one will sponsor them and the sport goes under. The sanctioning body can control a lot as well.
Everyone has an equal amount of control over the sport. It?s like a big game of paper/rock/scissors. No one entity can survive alone or defeat another.
It all comes to a head, however, at the sanctioning body. They are the ones that have to keep this wide variety of people, with all of their conflicting views, happy enough to keep them coming back. NASCAR has done a great job with this over the past 30 years despite all the problems they faced along the way. Sanctioning bodies have the toughest job of all.
Everyone who reads this forum has control over the sport of rally. I still stand by my other statement that I haven't yet met anyone in this sport, no matter what side of the issue, who I thought was evil or was trying to do the sport harm for their own personal gain.
Sponsoring in motorsports is a lot like buying a stock. A sponsor invests their money at the beginning of the year. That money is spent no matter what happens that year. If the series gets bigger, and more people participate, watch it on TV, go to an event, or it gets a lot more media coverage then the value of that "stock" went up. You got more than you paid for. The opposite can happen too. I don't think that any of the people involved in CART this year really felt that it was a good investment. Maybe some of the minor players but not the major ones.
Series sponsors have a stake in improving the series. That means they want close racing, lots of competitors, drama, fans, media, and tv ratings. Smart sponsors know they have to try to take care of everyone involved with their sanctioning body to make that happen.
Greg
