They (NHRA and/or their marketing/PR people, and smart teams like John Force) have people who watch the telecast, and go second by second through it looking for sponsor's signage, logos, and such, and count the number of seconds it is on the screen. They count it on the car, on the crew guys' shirts, on the transporter, on a sign in the background, everything. They multiply that by the number of people who watch and they get what are called "impressions", sometimes counted out to "impression-seconds".
Then they count the number of times a person mentions mentions the sponsor, those are called "mentions" (and they are much more valuable, of course). There are "editorial mentions" when someone mentions the sponsors name in context of the event, and "promo mentions", when someone is paid to mention it. Needless to say, editorial mentions are much more valuable.
When they are making a pitch to the sponsor they sell them "impressions" and "mentions". That's why John Force rattles off the names -- each one is worth something. It's also why the actual run doesn't mean that much, it's the number of times you get the logo and mentions on the screen. And it's why things like the start, burnout, staging, and replays are much more valuable than the run (longer time on screen). And it's also why John is a millionaire.
