IndyCar signs new sponsorship
IndyCar announced a multi-year title sponsorship deal Tuesday with NTT, a global information technology and communications company based in Japan.
The series will be called the NTT IndyCar Series. NTT Data, a subsidiary of parent company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., already sponsors a car for Chip Ganassi Racing and received enough exposure from that deal to warrant a larger piece of the open-wheel racing series. The season’s first race is March 10 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The partnership revealed at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit also makes NTT the official technology partner of the IndyCar Series, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR’s Brickyard 400.
“IndyCar has grown in terms of all of our fan metrics and is a valuable global brand that NTT recognizes,” Mark Miles, president and CEO of IndyCar and IMS parent company Hulman & Company, told The Associated Press. “We feel great about it because they are a corporate giant in global communications and their strategy is to begin to expose the NTT parent brand, which in Japan is a company much like a merger between AT&T and Verizon.”
NTT replaces Verizon, which was title sponsor of the series from 2014 until it ended its partnership last season. IndyCar had nearly two years to replace Verizon, but the NTT deal came together rapidly at the end of last season.
The company approached IndyCar executives before the September season finale asking if it was too late to discuss the entitlement package, and IndyCar immediately opened talks. The broader deal was completed in roughly three months and sealed with a November trip to Tokyo in which IndyCar officials and Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato made a winning pitch to NTT.
ETC.
Skiing: Mikaela Shiffrin took advantage of a massive first-run lead to win a World Cup giant slalom on Tuesday and earn her 10th victory of the season. Having established a 1.39-second advantage in the opening leg on the steep Erta slope in Italy, Shiffrin finished a comfortable 1.21 seconds ahead of Tessa Worley of France. In perfect conditions, Marta Bassino of Italy moved up from fourth after the first run to finish third, 1.57 back.
Shiffrin was determined to win at Kronplatz after failing to reach the podium in her first two races there. Shiffrin was fifth in San Vigilio in 2017 and had an uncharacteristic fall in the first run last year.
Soccer: Newcastle advanced to the fourth round of the FA Cup, though coach Rafa Benitez doesn’t seem too keen on making a deep run in the competition. By beating second-tier Blackburn 4-2 after extra time in a third-round replay, Newcastle earnd only a fifth FA Cup victory in the past 11 seasons and set up a home. … After a long and often rocky courtship, Austin and Major League Soccer became a match. The league formally welcomed Austin as its 27th franchise with a raucous downtown party Tuesday full of chanting and flag-waving, and Commissioner Don Garber calling the Texas capital a “perfect fit.” MLS said Austin will begin play in the 2021 season.
Baseball: John Wetteland, a former All-Star and World Series MVP, has been charged in Texas with continuous sex abuse of a child under age 14. Wetteland, 52, was arrested Monday and freed on $25,000 bond, according to Denton County jail records. Wetteland lives in the Dallas-area suburb of Trophy Club. Bartonville Police Chief Bobby Dowell said the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services contacted his office last week. After an investigation, an arrest warrant was issued for Wetteland, who was taken into custody by Denton County sheriff’s deputies. Dowell he had no further details to release in the case.