Race to name NASCAR event slows to crawl

Thursday, June 12, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Despite a sluggish economy that is forcing many companies to reevaluate where they spend their marketing dollars, there still is a “significant amount of interest” in the naming rights to the annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, according to speedway President Chris Powell.

Powell announced in October that the United Auto Workers would end its sponsorship of the Las Vegas race after the 2008 event, which was held in March. The UAW had sponsored the Cup race at the speedway since 2001.

In a release issued by the track at the time, Powell was quoted as saying potential sponsors had expressed interest in the title sponsorship if it were to become available. Although it has been eight months since he made that statement and the track still has not announced a new title sponsor for the race, Powell said he is not concerned.

“We’re very confident that we’re going to have sponsorship for our race next March, and we’ll have a very good sponsor,” Powell said. “We’re looking for the right fit here for Las Vegas, and I’m very confident that we will find such a fit and I think it’ll be good for the speedway, it’ll fit well with the community and it will be good for the sport when we find that chosen one.”

But where are those companies that had expressed an interest in the sponsorship if it became available?

“I’m not going to speak specifically, but we’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of very good companies and there’s a significant amount of interest,” Powell said. He added that deals of this magnitude — a sponsorship for a high-profile race such as the Las Vegas event easily could fetch several million dollars a year — rarely get done “overnight.”

And though the tough economic times are not to be ignored, Powell said he did not expect that to deter the speedway from finding a title sponsor for its race.

“While we’re always sensitive to the overall economy, the difficult economy that we’re experiencing right now does not necessarily mean that we’re going to have much more difficulty in selling sponsorships,” he said.

The Las Vegas Cup race annually is one of the highest-rated NASCAR races of the season, in part because it follows closely the season-opening Daytona 500, when interest in the sport is at its peak. The broadcast of this year’s race earned a 7.1 rating and has been the second-most-watched race this season after the Daytona 500. The previous two races, in 2007 and 2006, were the third-highest rated of the 36 annual points races.

That popularity, combined with the fact that the race typically sells out approximately 130,000 permanent grandstand seats plus suites and motor home spaces, makes the Las Vegas race among the most attractive on the circuit in terms of sponsorship. This year’s Cup race attracted 165,450 spectators, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, and more than 330,000 people visited the speedway during the three-day race weekend.

Powell would not disclose the value of the UAW sponsorship or what he expected the speedway would be looking for from a new sponsor, but agreed the Las Vegas race likely would be among the most lucrative in the sport.

“I think the fact that it is one of the premier events in the sport would make me believe we would put the value of our sponsorship among the top four or five in the sport, probably,” he said, “given that it is such a highly anticipated event as well as a well-attended event in a great city, and a great facility, with great weather.”

Las Vegas Motor Speedway does not yet have an official date for its 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race because its parent company, Speedway Motorsports Inc., still is in negotiations with NASCAR on the sanctioning agreement, but it is expected that the race will be held March 1.