Fans sampling taste of new era might feel jolt
Drink it in. Let it effervesce over the tongue. Tingles. Now swallow it, hard-core NASCAR fans, and decide how it tastes.
In a sport in which a title sponsor is not just a logo or a brand but an emblem of the state and essence of things for a hard kernel of heavily invested, heavily fretful fans, Monster Energy was announced Thursday as the replacement for Sprint as the benefactor of NASCAR’s top series.
Gone, probably, will be the suffix “Cup” that has been the convenient nickname of the series since R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. branded and built the series into a national commodity with its Winston brand in 1971. An official name and logo were not presented Thursday, but NASCAR chairman Brian France said the series had numerous options. So you can perseverate on that even longer.
Gone will be a major multi-demographic brand such as Sprint, nee Nextel, which became title sponsor in 2004 but announced 102 weeks ago that it would depart the sport because of recalibrated business objectives.
In comes an energy drink company that has shown vigor and enthusiasm in promoting other forms of motor sports, most notably supercross. Motor sports, correctly noted by France, is “in their DNA,” and Monster is a logical partner for the series in its current state — or predicament — as it attempts to stem declining attendance and TV ratings by younging down its aging fan base.
NASCAR, France noted a day before the sport’s annual awards banquet in Las Vegas, is “in the fun business.” And Monster with its claw marks, caffeine and such is good at fun.
That Monster doesn’t market its highly caffeinated beverage to children younger than 12, per the company, is ironic and unfortunate for the series, because that is the next generation NASCAR is trying to reach. The teens remain ever-fickle about stock cars, even as they guzzle down their palpitation juice. Then again, cigarettes worked for a long time.
Maybe Monster will make inroads. But Red Bull and its Sprint Cup team were supposed to do the same a decade ago. So was Travis Pastrana.
Monster had been rumored as the choice for weeks. NASCAR executive vice president Steve Phelps noted the timing ceded to the championship weekend in late November and allowed Sprint a graceful exit. But a news conference called midday Thursday, with no new top-series name or logo available to share, felt like a rush-job Vegas wedding.
Monster aligns with a sport that, despite recent regression in attendance and TV ratings, has national appeal. And those little problems probably allowed Monster to pay far less than Sprint had to originally before renegotiating a better rate in its last extension in 2011. No terms besides “a multiyear agreement with some options” were announced. “Long-term” or maybe a number like “10 years” — the length of the initial Nextel deal, estimated at at least $70 million a year at the time — would have felt sturdier.
That’s the business part. Now it’s up to the fan part. The title sponsor means more to you than marketing. You into a T-shirt with some claw marks on it?
You will put Monster chief marketing officer Mark Hall’s theory — “Young people set trends in fashion, and then older people adapt” — to the test very soon. You will be watching.
You were probably watching the livestream and the conclusion of an afternoon of odd optics, four middle-aged men — France, Phelps, Hall and Monster marketing executive Mitch Covington — flanked by models in pants and leather vests, cracking open energy drinks and toasting the future.
It was a head rush in the moment. But you’re worried about the aftertaste.