Bargains exist for race backers

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — With the NASCAR season revving up at Daytona International Speedway this week, companies still have a chance to associate themselves with the sport’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

And they can do so at the relative bargain-bin prices found in NASCAR’s second-tier Nationwide series.

In happier economic times a few years ago, the possibility of such a deal would have triggered a stampede of potential sponsors tradin’ paint with briefcases as they raced from the boardroom to the track. But as of this week, the Earnhardt family’s JR Motorsports team had sponsorship contracts in hand for only 12 of 35 races for its main No. 88 car; the team has struck separate deals for Danica Patrick to run a part-time schedule in a second car.

Earnhardt Jr.’s sister Kelley, who leads the team’s sponsorship search, is frustrated but not surprised at how difficult the process has been.

“When you are knee-deep in it and talking to your sponsors, I am not surprised, if you listen to them talk about what they are up against,” she said. “They want the return [on investment]. We as a sport, I think we’ve had some checks and balances of what they are paying for — how much it is to sponsor one of our cars versus the return they get.”

Economic woes haven’t completely chased corporate America away from NASCAR. There are some signs that interest is picking up after sponsors cut back significantly or left the sport last year.

But in sharp contrast to the go-go mid-2000s, when top teams regularly reeled in eight-figure sponsorship deals, companies now are demanding more for less.

“It’s still a fabulous investment, and JR Motorsports gets more attention than a lot of Cup teams do,” Kelley Earnhardt said. “But we’re having to change the way we approach it.”

That means taking a crash course in learning to use social media such as Facebook and Twitter for sponsorship exposure purposes.

“It used to be you could talk about [traditional media] impressions and TV ratings, but now they want actual physical people they can touch,” she said. “Now we sit in meetings with potential sponsors and talk about Facebook and Twitter. They ask, ’How many Facebook friends do you have?’ They want actual bodies to touch.”