Sponsorship dollars are a key pillar of any sporting teams’ backend operating model. The market for buying and selling these coveted brand exposure opportunities is often predicated by a number of different factors; ranging from brand exposure value, to
TV viewership, fan demographics and much more. Investments in different sports will naturally yield different return on objectives.
Recently, Relo examined NASCAR specifically with the goal of providing a wide lens POV on the challenges and opportunities presented by NASCAR partnerships.
This article is the first of a multi-part series in which Relo Metrics will analyze the following key themes :
Current Challenges in the NASCAR Landscape
To help brands and rights holders best understand the performance of their partnerships in the space, Relo took a deep dive into specific NASCAR values, aiming to contextualize specific data points with that of other major sports professional leagues.
* Dataset above includes all brands and all assets per team
The chart above showcases the number of viewable brand exposures and duration (in seconds) on broadcast that each specific rights holder receives on a per event average. NASCAR drivers and teams, on average provide fewer exposures to their brand partners than teams from other leagues. While multiple factors play a role in this - such as how many sponsors each team has - an important consideration to point out is the sheer volume (or lack thereof) of assets NASCAR rights holders have the opportunity to sell.
Not only do brands sponsoring NASCAR teams receive a limited number of exposures when juxtaposed with other US major leagues, but the quality of their exposures is also lower.
The chart above showcases the average MVP score teams receive in each league, with MVP indicating the quality of brand exposures. The aforementioned quality is mostly tied to viewability issues, which are caused by multiple factors such as camera angles, sports performances, and blurry frames due to the fast pace of NASCAR cars.
The frame above gives a taste of one of the many common viewability issues, as the wide-angle camera shot makes it quite difficult for brands on cars to be recognizable.
The Importance of Providing High Quality Brand Exposures
With the end of the season still months away, it is safe to state that 2022 marks a turning point for NASCAR: reversing the trend of the last couple of years, the Daytona 500 - one of the flagship races - saw a significant increase in viewership, as reported by Sports Business Journal.
While multiple factors play a role in viewership ratings (other recent Daytona 500 were impacted by weather delays), the aforementioned increase confirms NASCAR continues to draw interest and provide ample opportunities to brands targeting the space.
Rights holders and brands alike should align on innovation, with the collective goal of continually driving their partnerships forward (which includes improving brand exposure value). Mitigating existing viewability issues where possible, and driving improvement will be a lucrative venture for all parties involved.
In the next article (which will be available the week of September 12th), Relo will go a few steps deeper into the most common viewability challenges prevalent in NASCAR and how they impact exposure values. Included will be a look into high-impact NASCAR assets, and how they benchmark against those in other US major leagues.