Regarding Jay Rathman’s post it’s important to keep one of his key points in mind when discussing or thinking about this subject: He acknowledges never having seen the POWERade documents personally.
Because Mr. Rathman has not personally seen the contractual agreement between NHRA and POWERade his financial outline simply has no veracity. Simply put, he’s merely reporting something someone else told him. That does not make it factual, and again, I mean no personal insult to Mr. Rathman.
This is too important an issue to allow speculation to become “fact.”
The only people who really know the numbers are those who signed the agreement, but in my view that isn’t the primary issue here. The issue is the lack of support the sponsor has shown the series since signing that agreement.
Look at it this way. A web site recently “reported” that the Pro Stock Truck settlement was $7.5 million without providing anything in the way of proof other than having “heard it” from someone. That does not make that number the right one (and it isn’t, believe me).
“Hearing” that a deal is worth X amount has no validity whatsoever. If you can’t back it up with facts it’s nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor.
Regarding P.J. Sapienza’s comments about O’Reilly’s, I was merely pointing out that NHRA had found it remarkably convenient to ignore one of their own marketing department “rules” when it was in their best interests to do so regardless of how that might impact the competitors.
Regarding Wayne Darlington’s post, it’s the sanctioning organization’s responsibility to FIND and SIGN a sponsor. If, and this is a big IF, the POWERade deal wasn’t a good one, then NHRA should have followed the lead of Mr. Compton when he said NHRA would proceed without a series sponsor if they couldn’t sign a “good one.”
As far as handing out free POWERade to a few fans at the end of a national event goes, that is indeed a very small point. While Winston never suggested that anyone start smoking, they did provide free product to the competitors. POWERade does not. The racers are expected to buy the product so that they can be seen using it, and therefore promote its “value” to the fans, who it’s then expected will buy it when they get home.
Why would a series sponsor desirous of promoting its product be asking those they want to do that promoting to buy it?
Maybe because they don’t have a real belief in the value of being involved with NHRA drag racing?
IF POWERade were solidly behind NHRA drag racing, and IF they believed NHRA drag racing was an exceptionally good promotional tool (which it very definitely is if utilized properly), giving product away by the truckload would be an obvious and extremely inexpensive way of expanding the public’s awareness of the product.
“Product” is the least expensive item any company has to offer. These are absolutely NOT real prices, I’m just throwing them out there for comparison purposes. So, IF a bottle of POWERade costs Coca-Cola fifty cents to produce, package, ship and market, and they retail that bottle for $2.00, the profit-per-bottle is obviously $1.50. So, each bottle that POWERade gives away only “costs” Coca-Cola $.50, yet they’re unwilling to even invest that small amount in support of the sport. On the contrary, they expect the racers to BUY the product for (remember, these aren’t “real” numbers) maybe $1.10, so no matter what, on every bottle of product the company is making at least something.
Dave Murphy, get real. NHRA and IHRA are competitors for the spectator’s dollars. The only area in which there’s even a modicum of cooperation is in national event scheduling. They do try to avoid scheduling conflicts with events are too close to one another geographically, and even then it’s not always successful.
Jon Asher
