Like perhaps no other sport, NASCAR is driven by sponsorships. And although the new television rights deal that includes a streaming platform like Amazon Prime Video for the first time may cause some concern for fans, the sponsors paying the bills are all for it.
NASCAR makes its Prime Video debut Sunday night with the running of one of the crown jewel events of the series, the Coca Cola-600 at Charlotte. It also marks the return of Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the broadcast booth after sitting out last season and working with NBC for several years. Earnhardt will announce the midseason packages for both Amazon and TNT.
While the racing series isn’t close to its mid-2000s peak of popularity, it still draws consistently high numbers. However, even prominent teams and star drivers have struggled in recent years with sponsorships with everyone in sports and business tightening belt straps in the modern economy.
But with NASCAR taking a forward thinking step in inking a streaming deal with Amazon, it’s provided a new lifeline for sponsors who see it as a positive move for the sport to reach consumers where they are. In an article at The Athletic by Jordan Bianchi, NASCAR team executives say the move to Amazon has been huge for increasing sponsorship deals, as has NASCAR’s first points race in Mexico later this year and expanding into new markets.
“The marketing side of it is very bullish right now,” said team owner Rick Ware, whose team signed a 12-race deal with Arby’s earlier this year. “We’re obviously one of the smaller teams and we’re having dramatically more conversations than we typically have in the past. That doesn’t mean that you close them all, but the interest is there.”
Nearly every team owner or executive who spoke to The Athletic for this story expressed similar enthusiasm. Many said this was the most optimistic they’ve felt about sponsorship in some time, pointing to increased interested due to two main factors: A new media rights deal that notably includes Amazon Prime picking up five races — the first time NASCAR has paired with a streaming service to carry Cup races — and the inclusion on the schedule of the first international Cup points race since the 1950s.
“The marketers know that’s the path of where audiences are going,” 23XI Racing president Steve Lauletta said. “So this isn’t a one-year light switch, it’s going to be more of a dimmer to try to keep growing and follow the audience as it grows.”
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“Sponsors are very intrigued by Amazon,” Richard Childress Racing president Mike Verlander said. “Now, we have no result back yet, so let’s see what the result looks like. But you see what they did with the NFL. It’s only grown. We expect the same.
“It’s been a massive shift. You’ll hear the naysayers about the unknowns of Amazon, but at the end of the day, I think it’s an all-positive narrative because there’s new players that are putting their stake into this. Now, is it tough because the avid fan has to now figure out where to find it? Yeah, but in time, everyone will fall in line and figure it out.”
The sponsorship game has changed dramatically in NASCAR in recent times. Once upon a time teams were synonymous with one sponsor and one paint scheme (think Dale Earnhardt Sr. in his black Goodwrench Chevrolet or Jeff Gordon with his rainbow DuPont scheme). Now, teams split primary sponsors throughout the season. Even the NASCAR Cup series itself now shares sponsors with three “premier partners” in Coca-Cola, Busch Light, and Xfinity sharing duties once held by companies like Winston and Nextel.
NASCAR is far from the first sport to embrace streaming. And the percentage of the schedule on Amazon Prime Video is relatively small compared to the entire race calendar. But both inside and outside the sport it could be one of the most pivotal relationships between a sports league and a streamer that we’ve seen. If fans are able to stay engaged and find races while it also brings new money into the sport, it could be a big home run for America’s top racing series.
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