Dollar General leaving NASCAR

The problem with simply saying "cut costs" may not be so much where and how, but for whom? NASCAR isn't like other stick and ball leagues and that goes down to it's very structure. You have three main organizations to balance out and not just two. You have the league itself, which is both private and for-profit unlike other leagues, the two track owners who are public and for-profit (and one is indirectly controlled by the league itself), and the teams/drivers. In the other sports leagues its much more simple; a non-profit governing body aggregates and distributes league-wide revenue to the for-profit teams which own and operate their own venues. It's much easier for them to cut costs because you're only exchanging money between two main entities. Somehow someone with a vision and enough balls to implement it is gonna have to come in and radically shake up this picture for NASCAR if it wants to survive.
 
Am I the only one that really doesn't care what these teams spend?

They will spend what they have. They've been doing this since 1949. Sponsors come and sponsors go. That too has been happening since 1949.

Not long from now we'll all hear who the replacement sponsor is for the #20 team and life will go on.
 
hidesert cowboy said:
what effect has the crappy TV deal had on the teams ( or is it crappy) ?? are the owners happy about it? my understanding it that there is more TV money to split up but if you can't sell sponsors that is of little help. What is the consensus behind the doors about the more money vs less viewers approach that nascar has taken.
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The TV money is really good, and now being divided among the owners (though still at a really poor/NASCAR greedy percentage. The owners should be getting MUCH more).

The problem with the current television landscape is that NBC & Fox are using NASCAR to help grow their sports cable spinoffs (which is why so many NASCAR races are on FS1 and NBCSN). Ratings aren't super important to them right now...demand of the channels is what's important...so they're perfectly at peace sacrificing ratings for demand. However, TV ratings are the lifeblood of most big sponsorships...and they are LOL BAD. I get Repucom and Joyce Julius numbers for many of the big sponsors in NASCAR on a weekly basis. At best, they are providing a 50% return on investment (the cars that lead the most laps). Contracts are all starting to be renegotiated. Even sponsors who have entered the sport (like Nature's Bakery) are doing so at a much cheaper rate than those who are leaving (GoDaddy). The bubble is bursting, and the marketplace will eventually right itself. But for now, there is definitely panic (I know, because I'm the guy who answers the phone when teams/drivers panic, and my phone is ringing off the hook).

When the bubble finishes bursting, the biggest losers will be the higher priced drivers. There will still be a NASCAR as we know it, there will just be much less money coming in, and much less money going out. And as I've said many times...I consider the bubble burst a good thing for the sport long term. There will be immediate hardships, and layoffs etc...but such is the case when any overpriced market rights itself.
 
Allenbaba said:
The TV money is really good, and now being divided among the owners (though still at a really poor/NASCAR greedy percentage. The owners should be getting MUCH more).

The problem with the current television landscape is that NBC & Fox are using NASCAR to help grow their sports cable spinoffs (which is why so many NASCAR races are on FS1 and NBCSN). Ratings aren't super important to them right now...demand of the channels is what's important...so they're perfectly at peace sacrificing ratings for demand. However, TV ratings are the lifeblood of most big sponsorships...and they are LOL BAD. I get Repucom and Joyce Julius numbers for many of the big sponsors in NASCAR on a weekly basis. At best, they are providing a 50% return on investment (the cars that lead the most laps). Contracts are all starting to be renegotiated. Even sponsors who have entered the sport (like Nature's Bakery) are doing so at a much cheaper rate than those who are leaving (GoDaddy). The bubble is bursting, and the marketplace will eventually right itself. But for now, there is definitely panic (I know, because I'm the guy who answers the phone when teams/drivers panic, and my phone is ringing off the hook).

When the bubble finishes bursting, the biggest losers will be the higher priced drivers. There will still be a NASCAR as we know it, there will just be much less money coming in, and much less money going out. And as I've said many times...I consider the bubble burst a good thing for the sport long term. There will be immediate hardships, and layoffs etc...but such is the case when any overpriced market rights itself.
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Sort of like a stock market correction --- I've seen a few of those.
Or the housing bubble --- could not believe the prices people were paying for teeny little houses.
 
LewTheShoe said:
Agree, with one caveat... possible departure...?

Business has been done one way for a long time in terms of dividing responsibilities (and costs) between the manufacturer and the teams. If Toyota redefines that dividing line, might it be possible that Chevy and/or Ford would reject following suit due to higher costs, and leave the sport? Things like the manufacturer taking on the cost of funding a pipeline stuffed with young talent? Or the manufacturer making B2B deals to secure sponsorship for a team? Etc, etc. [All speculation by me, probably wrong, I sure hope so.]
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Think you have a very good point here, but I will say this for certain....Toyota understands that they are only as good as NASCAR. They never came to obliterate the sport. In fact, there are a lot of things that would lead one to believe that Japan was just fine with rough early years. They want to be a partner to NASCAR. I cannot see Toyota doing anything to decimate the sport. Chevy has too big of a history to bail, and Ford is starting to look a lot like a TRD model. Good things for this sport IMO.
 
^ Rev, very good post, good thoughts there. Chev could bail, however, and so could Ford, and so could both together. But we all hope they won't. I agree Toyota does not seek to decimate the sport, and we all hope they don't do that by accident, either.
 
LewTheShoe said:
I agree Toyota does not seek to decimate the sport, and we all hope they don't do that by accident, either.
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Toyota doesn't do much by accident. They are trying to sell cars here. Pissing off the NASCAR faithful by putting the other manufacturers out of business is not a good way to do it. They spent a few years in Trucks in part to assess how this country would view them. They wouldn't do anything to jeopardize their reputation that they have built. Note Toyota's willingness to work with the other manufacturers with the Gen 4 bodies, etc. Again, they have been a great partner to NASCAR itself.
 
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