NASCAR shakes up sales team amid 2025 blue-chip deal struggles: Reports

Amid NASCAR executive vice president and chief revenue officer, Daryl Wolfe's retirement announcement and the reduced asset mix of blue-chip company Coca-Cola as a premier partner, a reshuffling in the sales team has occurred. The high-octane motorsport is reportedly struggling with the deal's renewal and is looking for a fifth Premier Partner.

The beginning of the 2020 season saw the NASCAR Premier Series being changed to the Cup Series, with Busch Beer, Xfinity, Coca-Cola and GEICO as Premier Partners. The move was in anticipation of the sport's enhanced visibility globally, promising to be a lucrative business model.

“This new model will provide our Premier Partners with a heightened level of integration and visibility across all aspects of our sport,” Daryl Wolfe had said.

However, as the 2024 season propels towards the championship race, the Premier Partnership deal is under threat of a possible falling out and the blue-chip deals are in jeopardy. Though GEICO hasn't downplayed the deal's renewal, the executives have kept the notion hazy regarding their interest.

Coca-Cola is not expected to pull out until the 2026 season begins, but a few NASCAR-owned tracks have been changing their beverage partners, with 7Up emerging as the sponsor at the Kansas race, hinting at the soda magnate's reducing economic interest. Xfinity might change its stand from being the title sponsor of the second-level series to a premier partner in the upcoming years.

With that, the top brass of the sport have released several employees under Wolfe's management and hired the Denver-based brand consultancy firm, Monigle in a bid to enhance their marketing and ability to secure deals with big-time sponsors.

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NASCAR marketing insider fears the sport might "fall behind" if it doesn't evolve its tactics

Being a capital-intensive sport, having financial backing is prime for a team to run its operations smoothly. The pinnacle of stock car racing was in a great place until the late 2000s, but the 2008 financial crisis sent tremors across not only the United States but all the nations trading in USD, and the motorsport suffered economic disappointment from the sponsors.

On the contrary, if we look at F1 after Netflix's 'Drive to Survive' was released in 2019, the open-wheel racing's allure was spread across the masses. However, the same collaboration with the streaming giant took five more years to officiate with NASCAR before the partnership birthed the sports docu-series, 'Full Speed.'

Though the officials struck a historic $7.7 billion media-rights deal, the sport's pace of evolution is apparently slow. Kami Taylor, the executive vice president of Experiences at Octagon fears this pace could doom the sport. Octagon is an athlete management firm that works with multiple brands in the high-octane sport.

Kimi Taylor said (via Sports Business Journal):

“If, as a league, they don’t evolve and grow with the way the marketplace is going, then they’re going to fall behind.”

Nonetheless, she believes the sport is in a good place and is suited for brands looking to grow:

“However, I think the overall health of NASCAR is strong and they still provide robust sponsorship opportunities for brands looking to grow regionally or domestically.”