The Speedway's Paved With Green

Cable World, July 21, 2003

Byline: SHIRLEY BRADY

Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart may not be household names in your home yet - but give it time.

NASCAR is one of the fastest-growing sports in the country - its popularity second only to football - and as NASCAR VP of broadcasting Paul Brooks says, "Television is the engine that helps drive the sport."

That also positions it as an advanced services driver for NASCAR's cable TV partners, who every season come up with creative ways to boost the brand and their own messages. Cable marketers have been savvy at leveraging the NASCAR brand even before former NASCAR sponsor (and top cable operator) AT&T Broadband merged its systems with Comcast.

NASCAR's brand loyalty makes it a marketer's dream. In 2002, NASCAR helped its sponsors secure nearly $5 billion in total exposure, and its 75 million fans show their devotion with their wallets. Its market research shows NASCAR-lovers are three times more likely than all other fan groups to buy products from any company that sponsors their favorite drivers or teams. The sport has more corporate sponsors - 34 - than any other major sport in the country.

It's also a ratings powerhouse, with more viewers than ever watching the auto races on NBC, TNT, Fox and its cable siblings. NBC and TNT jointly averaged a 13% increase in ratings during their exclusive coverage of the second half of the 2002 season (July through November) over a year earlier. TNT alone posted increases of 21% (to 4.6) in household ratings and 23% (to 2.9 million) for household delivery for the 2002 Winston Cup season on the network.

Such successes convinced Nextel to tie its future to the sport. Starting in January, NASCAR's title sponsor of more than 30 years, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., is being replaced by the wireless communications company in a ten-year deal estimated to be worth $40 million a year plus an additional $30 million annual media budget. (RJR will remain involved in the sport through a contract extension that runs through 2007.)

Besides switching the name of the Winston Cup to the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series next year, the title sponsorship change reflects the sport's growing popularity among teens and women, along with its growing presence in high-tech platforms such as wireless, interactive, broadband and on-demand.

While the sport appeals to all ages - its fan base is roughly 50/50 men and women - its TV viewership is skewing younger. The number of 12- to 17-year-olds watching NASCAR on television has more than doubled since 1999, the largest growth in that age group of any major sport.

It is now the No. 2 televised sport (behind NFL) among 12- to 17-year-olds, and twice as many of them watch NASCAR as watch the NBA. Besides a growing base of female teen viewers, roughly 58% of all kids 7 to 11 are NASCAR fans.

Those trends (from NASCAR, based on research from the 1999-2002 ESPN Sports Poll and Nielsen Media Research) bode well for cable's advanced services.

Racing has expanded beyond its traditional base in the South into more urban areas, bringing events (and marketing opportunities) to more cable markets than ever, including Los Angeles and Chicago. Although eight of the sport's ten-most-avid TV markets are still in the Southeast, growing TV markets for NASCAR ratings last season include Hartford, Conn., Portland, Ore., and Boston.

Farther up the coast, last weekend Time Warner Cable's Maine division tapped into the New England 300, held July 20 at the New Hampshire International Speedway, to promote NASCAR In Car on In Demand. The system gave away free tickets to the event to promote the cutting-edge interactive product for digital cable, which includes a special remote control so fans can access feeds from seven in-car cameras (up from five last season) and real-time data on drivers each week.

As the industry's first enhanced multichannel digital sports package, In Demand is offering a half-season rate of $89 for a 19-race NASCAR In Car package, which it promoted with a free preview on July 5 to demonstrate the product's features during the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway. "Feedback for the package has been really good," says In Demand spokesman Joe Boyle of the response by affiliates to this year's enhanced interactive offering.

NASCAR.com offers Trackpass, a subscription suite of products for broadband users and those fans who must keep up with the sport between races. The service offers exclusive access to a wide variety of live and on-demand features including race coverage of more than 250 Winston Cup and Busch Series events, leaderboard, video highlights and audio clips.

TrackPass retails for $6.95 monthly or $49.95 for the season, or for $9.95/$64.95 with a PitCommand feature, offering real-time GPS-based race telemetry data for Winston Cup events. TrackPass is also available to RealOne SuperPass subscribers, and to Road Runner high-speed Internet users.

The website, and all of NASCAR's interactive rights, are owned and produced by Turner Sports Interactive, which also offers a wireless product. The website has attracted up to 3 billion unique visitors a month since Turner took over and redesigned the site, now one of the most popular sports sites on the Web.