Sign of the times: without a permanent primary sponsor, accomplished driver Jeff Burton has had to endure what is becoming increasingly common among Cup teams: financial uncertainty

Sporting News, The, May 17, 2004 by Mark McCarter

The McLaughlin Group is on TV. Across the garage area on this Sunday morning, 40-something other satellite dishes atop gazillion-dollar haulers are pulling down TV signals from the sky. ESPN. VH1. Speed. The Weather Channel. Hokey old movies.

Not in Jeff Button's digs, up here in the lounge of his race team's truck. None of that for this political junkie. He has the Sunday morning news/analysis/debate/interview shows dialed in, this week's topic being the possibility of a national draft.

As Burton brings silence to the screen with a punch of the mute button, he says he is amazed "members of the media can spend so much energy on something that has no relevance whatsoever."

Sinking deep into the leather sofa opposite Burton, you have found the perfect segue. What about members of the media spending energy reporting so much on a subject clearly relevant to Burton? You might have heard the premise already. Geoff Smith, president of Roush Racing, has heard it, and repeats it.

"He's the best driver without a long-term sponsor," Smith says.

Behind Burton in the hauler is a mirrored wall. Inscribed on the mirror are various team goals for 2004, things such as improving starting positions and speeding up pit stops. The last and biggest item is simply:

"WIN!"

Though another line could be added: "Find Somebody to Pay For It."

No less an observer than Richard Petty says, "Used to, we went after million-dollar companies. Now we're going after billion-dollar companies."

"There are financial issues with our sport, and no one should make light of that," Burton says.

With rising salaries, more technology and more extensive travel and testing, it costs $15 million to $20 million to operate a race team, more than triple the price from a decade ago. Some in the garage area suggest Roush Racing's asking price of a reported $10 million to $16 million to sponsor Burton's car is too steep. Then again, you're not exactly buying decal space on your next-door-neighbor's kid's soapbox derby car. This is a driver with 17 wins, five consecutive years in the top 10 in points (plus two 12th-place finishes in the past two seasons) and a reputation as the most articulate driver in the garage driving for an organization that won last season's championship.

"We've had lot of sponsors come into the fold at Roush Racing (in the past year), but none at the financial level of Jeff Burton that we would require for that program," Smith says. (A deal with AT&T fell through after NASCAR signed new title sponsor Nextel.)

"It's tough," empathizes fellow driver Joe Nemechek, who has dealt with sponsorship issues as a team owner as well. "It takes a lot of money to make these teams run. I think the economy is turning around because we've had more and more leads with people wanting to get involved. But right now, it's in a tough state."

It's scary arithmetic. Fewer dollars divided by more competition.

"You want to know why the teams are struggling, go look at the side of the Big Truck," says one garage veteran, referring to the logos of "Official Sponsors" that spend money with NASCAR rather than on the teams.

"There is a great amount of interest in the sport and it sells a lot of sponsorships, but there haven't been a lot of the big primaries come in," Smith says, referring to the $10 million to $15 million sponsors. "We're facing a tremendous amount of competition from other people within the sport who are selling things at lower price points than we are doing. We face competition from NASCAR directly and tracks directly, plus everything that's not in motorsports."

"There is, without a doubt, a lack of sponsorship dollars in the garage in comparison to years past," Burton says. "I don't understand why that is. When I do my analysis of it, it sure doesn't feel like people aren't watching. It sure doesn't feel like people have lost interest in NASCAR."

Burton does subscribe to the 9-11 theory that NASCAR is just now feeling the bite because so many long-term sponsorships in effect since early 2001 are coming to an end.

But, he says, "We can't look at this problem as an isolated post-September 11 problem. We need to be looking at it as, 'What can we do to help us make it more accessible to more sponsors?' That's our charge. That's NASCAR's charge. And the team owners' charge.

"We cannot succeed in this sport without corporate America. It's that simple."

Kim Burton, Jeff's wife, spent two days in mid-April on yard work around the house. She planted a garden. She attacked some pesky weeds with Roundup, a herbicide.

At the same time, Ward Burton, Jeff's brother, told him, "I must have sprayed 100 gallons of that stuff" on his property.

Perhaps that drove company profits through the roof. Perhaps that's why Jeff Burton got a phone call that night telling him he had a new four-race sponsorship deal--with Roundup. That's the way things have gone this season, "trying to cobble together one-, two-, three-, four-race deals," Smith says.

"It has been a distraction to our team members," Burton says of the sponsorship uncertainty. "People forget that this is indeed what we do because we love to do it, but it is also what we do to earn a living. When you have crew members that are committed to paying house mortgages and for children's clothes and those kinds of things, and the company they work for has rumors circling around it about shutting the team down, then it continues to be a distraction.