September 10, 2007
By Allen Madding

Allen Madding

Sprint/Nextel and AT&T smoked the proverbial peace pipe this week hammering out an agreement that would allow the AT&T logo, which resembles the death star from Star Wars, to return to the Richard Childress Racing No. 31 Chevrolet. The agreement allows AT&T to finish out the year and go one more year as the team’s primary sponsor, but it will not be allowed to serve as a sponsor for any team in the Cup Series after the conclusion of the 2008 season.

At the same time, NASCAR just happens to be searching for a title sponsor for the Busch Series as Anheuser-Busch baulked at NASCAR’s 30 million dollar a year price tag for 2008. This presents AT&T with a viable option for 2008. If Sprint kicks you out of Cup, buy the title sponsorship for the Saturday race and cover the venue of the week with the AT&T Series logo.

AT&T could use the opportunity to be a bigger thorn in Sprint’s side by replacing Busch as the sponsor for the “Saturday” series than they ever could by sponsoring a single team in the Cup Series. Currently every track that has coordinated weekends with Busch Series and Cup Series events running the same weekend have the Busch Series and the Nextel Cup Series logos painted on the grass, in the infield, on the track programs, track equipment, concession stands, track buildings, safer barriers, etc.

Consider how much more exposure AT&T would receive on race weekend even after the Saturday is over compared to their current amount of exposure.

The Busch Series even has their own version of the big officials’ trailer like the Cup Series utilizes and it is plastered with the Busch Series logos in larger than life font. You can bet if that trailer said AT&T on it, Sprint would want it off the property before sunrise on Sunday. AT&T could rent a parking spot across the street from most racetracks in someone’s yard to park it prominently for all to see.

The midway at most tracks now have an area referred to as vendor row. Walk through vendor row on any given weekend and you will see several Busch Series teams selling their shirts and collectibles and proudly displaying the Busch Series logo. Walk through the camping areas in the infield and outside the tracks and you will notice flagpoles displaying race teams’ flags as well as Nextel Cup flags, and you guessed it - Busch Series flags. No matter how much they might protest Sprint could not clean the tracks of all of the AT&T logos between Saturday and Sunday, if they tired.

Additionally, every car in the series and every team’s crewmembers’ uniforms would carry the AT&T logo. On Saturday, you would not be able to turn your head and not see an AT&T logo.

Granted some could say that Sprint sponsors the “premier” series and by sponsoring the Saturday events, AT&T would appear to be a smaller player in the communications arena, but it certainly seems to make a lot more sense to sponsor the Saturday series than get out of NASCAR all together.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.