Did you know that Wal-Mart has been in discussions with NASCAR about possibly sponsoring a team and getting a direct license to merchandise some NASCAR products? That’s what Fox News is reporting and it’s an interesting premise, that’s for sure, and to be honest, it could be a win-win for many invovled.
As far as sponsoring a team itself, they are of course, looking at Hendricks. Hendricks drivers account for 75% of sales of all licensed NASCAR product. (Wow, that’s a chunk!) But that’s not a given at the moment, but I’m sure we can understand focusing on that team. The exact nature of their car logo sponsorship has to be determined, though it’s thought that their agreement will by multi-driver based rather than settling on a single car. This could also alleviate some costs for the other drivers primary sponsors.
It’s also been noted that NASCAR is looking for someone to take over the licensed apparel aspect of the sport’s merchandise from Motorsports Authentics. The distribution of NASCAR apparel , if taken over by Wal-Mart, would obviously mean more NASCAR goodies and possibly whole sections in Wal-Mart.
In case you had not noticed, other orgs are doing package sponsor deals with different sports. It’s just not paying off like it could to be the name sponsor and hope that fans will stumble out the door and right into that sponsor’s store front. So they’ve been snagging merchandise exclusives to boot. Makes perfect sense to me.
