As Logano celebrates Cup title, officials look to extend party
HOMESTEAD, FLA. — Joey Logano probably still has slivers of confetti scattered across his body, celebrating his first NASCAR Cup title and a glorious end to the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup season.
As the bubbly popped Sunday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway, NASCAR officials had solid reasons to celebrate: The oftentweaked and much-maligned playoff format delivered the power punch of the best scenario imaginable.
Logano was paired with the three most dominant drivers of the season — Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick. The night certainly brought more anticipation and action than in the old days, when a driver could be so far ahead on points that he could do a slow-crawl with his blinkers on, finish 24th, and still be crowned King of the Road.
But anyone who follows this sport knows that everything is not hunkydory. NASCAR is at a crossroads, seemingly shape-shifting at every turn to try to get a bump back in relevance. The backdrop does not provide much encouraging news.
Of NASCAR’s 31 non-delayed races this year, 27 had a dip in ratings and 26 were flagged by Sport Media Watch as having decade-low or all-time lows in ratings.
CEO and chairman Brian France was arrested on charges of aggravated driving while intoxicated and criminal possession of a controlled substance in August and has since been out of the public eye. He remains on an indefinite leave of absence. France’s uncle, Jim, is now leading NASCAR on an interim basis.
Truex, the 2017 defending champion who finished second to Logano Sunday night, is moving over to Joe Gibbs Racing after getting squeezed out of Furniture Row Racing because of simple economics. The team announced it would shut down operations after 5-hour Energy dropped its primary sponsorship.
Jimmie Johnson, a six-time Cup champion, lost Lowe’s, the team’s Joey Logano was paired with the three most dominant drivers of the season — Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick — in Sunday’s season finale. primary sponsor since 2001.
“Listen, we always have work to be done, for sure,” NASCAR President Steve Phelps said during a media availability prior to Sunday’s championship race. “The sponsorship component of this, there are — and I’ve been accused of being Pollyanna ish before. I believe the state of sponsorship in this sport continues to accelerate in a positive manner, not just because we have a new sponsorship model coming.”
NASCAR officials are looking at a multi-tiered sponsorship system, getting away from one company — in this case Monster Energy — cutting a huge check to sponsor the Cup Series. Monster Energy has a year remaining on its contract estimated at $20 million annually.
The tiers would break down into smaller increments among different sponsors and hopefully provide a greater influx of cash.
That still won’t solve the issue for the full-time Cup teams, who field as many as four cars during a 38-race season that includes two all-star races. Race groups do not divulge costs of fielding a Cup car for the season, with guess-timates going from $10 million to $15 million.
But the fact remains there is no silver bullet answer to fix everything, much like there isn’t one gotcha reason NASCAR is struggling for the clout it had during its peak years in the late 1990s.
Many stars, including Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt, have retired. A three-hour race is a long and tedious commitment to fans, especially the younger ones with an attention span of three to four clicks on their cell phone. Cars really aren’t cool anymore, as they were back in the day. And traditional fans, tired of all the changes to the playoff formats and the exclusion of smaller tracks in the Southeast, have tuned out and aren’t coming back.
Still a lot of people remain dedicated to fix this thing, including Roger Penske.
“You need to have people who love it, so Roger Penske loves racing, and we need to make sure that we find that next Roger Penske, we find that next Jack Roush, we find that next Rick Hendrick,” Phelps said. “If they’re not going to have folks in their family that will carry on that tradition, we need to go outside.”
The key question isn’t just finding people. It’s finding money.