FEBRUARY 17, 2009

US motorsports sponsorship falling?

According to IEG Sponsorship Report, a leading authority on sponsorship, North American-based companies will spend an estimated $3.3bn in motorsport this year - but that will be a nearly six percen down on the $3.5bn spent last year. The slide is the first recorded since IEG began tracking motorsport sponsorship in 1985. According to the report sponsorship deals are still being done but the money involved is coming down and the sponsorships are changing with more deals done for less than a full season. NASCAR is pretty well adjusted to race-by-race deals with some cars appearing in different liveries on a regular basis. F1 has long worked on the basis that teams will run with the same liveries at every event, thus increasing the professional image of the sport and making it easy for fans to recognise the cars involved.