Done in by doughnuts
NASCAR SPONSOR WARS
NASCAR’s business model is imploding before our eyes. The New World Order is chaotic, unstable and highly unpredictable. Welcome to the crossfire, Daniel Suarez.
You’re fired! The reason? Doughnuts.
Suarez committed the deadly sin of promoting a competitor’s brand by handing out Dunkin’ Donuts to fans while riding a golf cart at New Hampshire in July. That’s a no-can-do because his sponsor, Subway, is also in the breakfast business.
Motorsport.com broke the story over the weekend. Joe Gibbs Racing, Suarez’s team, confirmed the circumstances to espn.com. Subway released the following statement: “Due to circumstances beyond our control, Subway had to terminate its sponsorship of Daniel Suarez.”
The quirky “Desayuno (breakfast) with Daniel” promotion turns out to be his Last Meal With Subway. There are lines a driver can never cross outside of the weekend skirmishes at the track, and promoting a competitor’s brand is high on the list. Witness the traditional scrums between Coke and Pepsi: Cola Wars with a twist of spittle on the side.
Jeff Gordon started out as a Coke Man with Hendrick Motorpicture sports, but then switched over to Pepsi, and starting in 1997 became its most prominent face of the sport during much of his career.
Of course, there is more than one sponsor and sacrifices had to be made.
“The first thing that comes to mind is Snickers early on in my career when I had to eat a lot of Snickers for a photo shoot,” Gordon said in an 2015 interview with USA Today. “I like Snickers, but not when you’re eating them over and over again. They just needed a of you biting into it. But even if you spit it out, there was still plenty. You think they’ll have it in one or two shots, but there’s a lot of different angles.”
Suarez’s mistake was an innocent one, but it confirms you cannot backstab a sponsor. And in today’s NASCAR, sponsorship money is disappearing quickly. Throw in veteran drivers who have priced themselves out of the market, and the sport is in a huge state of turnover.
Veterans Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch, and Kasey Kahne have been dropped by their teams and don’t have a ride for 2018. Target has ended Kyle Larson’s sponsorship in 2018. Every one of those drivers will advance to the playoffs, barring some unforeseen misfortune involving Kenseth.
“It’s the business model we are headed toward,” Fox Sports analyst Larry McReynolds said. “It’s not all about talent anymore — it’s also about dollars.”