In reply to GameboyRMH:
I totally understand what you're sayin'.
I had my horns on.
In reply to GameboyRMH:
I totally understand what you're sayin'.
I had my horns on.
Do I care now? Once it's been pointed out to me yes. Did I know who or what AMG was or where Scott Tuckers money came from at the time? No, but I do now, and now it’s a problem to me.
The major problem for Motorsport sponsorship is that for many true, hard core fans they really don't care about who the sponsors are……..or so they/we think. I was (and still am) a massive McLaren fan and was in the Marlboro days, I also loved the old Camel Lotus cars. Have I ever smoked? No, filthy disgusting murdering habit as far as I'm concerned. Would I have favored Camel or Marlboro if I had smoked? Possibly. Did I care then or now that the teams were sponsored by tobacco money? No, it was a legal if stupid product so I was fine with it. If you started smoking any time in the last 50 years you already knew it was bad for you, so why should I care if you do? But that view also makes me a hypocrite. I do care that AMG / Tucker are funded by pay day loans as I see that as a predatory practice. I care more that they have allegedly been using the Native American tie in as a possible legal dodge / protection, but I still care even if they are found to be 100% legal. I would be equally pissed off if a team were sponsored by the Westboro Baptist Church or an anti-abortion group as those things are all totally opposite to my moral compass.
Did I care that John Paul Sr and Jr were funding themselves with drug money and attempted murder in the 80’s or that Bill Whittington won the 79 LeMans using Marijuana money and tax evasion? I care more about the TAX evasion and the shooting part than the Marijuana side as that being illegal seems dumb to me. See I said I was a hypocrite. I am more disturbed by the illegal things they did as a result of the original illegal act, rather than the thing itself. Nothing is black and white.
Does sponsorship even work? As a direct selling tool I don’t think so, as a brand awareness tool absolutely.
Has Jonnie Walkers long time sponsorship of my favorite team McLaren influenced me to buy their product? No, I dismissed it for decades as I thought it was inferior to my other preferred whisky’s. I accidentally discovered I actually like Jonnie Walker Red when I was given a bottle as a present. I will now buy it instead of other products, but not initially because of their sponsorship of my life long favorite team.
Does Ferrari owning and sponsoring their own F1 team make me like their cars anymore? Actually the exact opposite. I can’t stand the Ferrari F1 team as I see them having used and abused the system to the detriment of the sport and other teams. I almost cried when Mansell went to drive for them.
Does Red Bull’s sponsorship of everything make me buy their products? No, I can’t stand their stuff. It may have got me to try my first overpriced can, but that was the end of it. If I happened to like energy drinks and I considered them equal in every way to Monster, NOS or one of the others it may influence me, but then again I may go for Monster as they sponsor Hamilton and Ken Block.
Having said all the negatives. I did consider changing from ATT to Verizon due to their sponsorship of Indy cars, but I really wanted a GSM phone so it could be used in Europe as well so I stayed with ATT. When I go out for Indian food I will drink Kingfisher beer as they sponsor Force India. When in the Caribbean I drink Red Stripe as they were a long time sponsor of sailing in the UK when I lived and competed there.
So to me as a consumer sponsorship works when I see an equal playing field and it’s a choice between equals. If you sponsor motorsport and you appear equal to me in all ways to what else is on offer I’ll go for it, but it can also negatively impact my view of your company if I don’t like you team for some reason.
Hell, did any of that make sense? I went on a bit of a ramble there, sorry folks.
Since this thread started with the Level 5 sponsorship I can say that they spent money like a "drunken sailor" and I know this because one on my best friends worked for the team for 3-4 years leaving only after the team closed down that part of the operation that he worked for. He was going to leave on his own anyway as he saw something coming that he didn't like. So he just went to his new job that much sooner.
He enjoyed his time there as the money was good and they treated him well, other than the fact that he only got to spend about 150 days either at home or at the race shop. The rest of the time he was on the road, much of that in Europe.
P.S. anyone remember this?
Yes Williams used to be sponsored by the Bin Laden family and Albilad bank
In reply to Adrian_Thompson:
Two trips to Italy, both times we got Vodafone. Because Racing.
Adrian_Thompson wrote: P.S. anyone remember this?
The Bin Laden family was and is a legit construction megacorp in the Middle East, just one of their sons decided that he would spend his excess of free time on Islamic extremism instead of sailing or golf.
I find Tucker's SCCA Runoff victories more unsettling, particularly DSR... granted, Tucker is a talented driver and team operator. With mega-dollars he achieved what other teams could only dream about but could never realistically accomplish and I suppose kudos are due for proving that it could be done.
However, if tainted money was used to develop the engines, chassis, aero etc. and aid in team support the wins and championship are tainted as well... not by any rule book but in the hearts and minds of any racer who competed or aspired to amateur sports racing.
As long as its legal, I really don't care. I may not want to buy their product, but I have no objections. I still think tobacco should be legal to advertise personally. If its a legal product to buy and sell, you should be able to advertise it. Of course most people know its a terrible habit, but it is legal. I've never been a smoker, and I never plan to, but their advertising never made me go buy a Camel.
Same thing with Payday loans. Crappy product and service, but if they didn't fulfill a need with somebody who can't make good decisions, they wouldn't be here. So as long as it isn't something they've done illegally, I think they have a right to be on the car.
That doesn't mean I will like it or patronize the advertiser, and I may want to ram it on track in my best Kyle Busch impersonation, but they should have a right to be there.
Now, I personally want to see the Colonoscopy car. 
I'm sure it would have to ram people every lap. 
Not that it was morally wrong, of course, but Geoffrey Bodine wearing bra company branded-stuff when he owned the truck team that Tammy Jo Kirk drove for (briefly) was amusing.
Sponsorship is almost never about a direct product sale to consumers.
It is about name recognition, and # of images seen. Impressions.
I didn't even consciously recognize Winston cigarettes sponsored a NASCAR race, but I sure knew what the Winston Cup was, and recognized the name.
Say what you want, but accepting a sponsorship is a public endorsement of the product, not just acceptance of their money.
No series, track, event, or team should ever accept a sponsorship for an illegal product. They are advocating the illegal product, plain and simple.
In the case of payday loans, laws vary state by state. A local track may not care about a sponsorship that is legal in their state, but it is different for a national series, or a televised event.
As awesome as "Team Cannabis" may be, the DoobieMobile should probably be limited to Colorado and Washington.
kanaric wrote: They could be sponsored by lucky strikes and al qaida for all i care.
This, a few years ago, I probably would have taken an entire sponsorship in the form of lucky strikes....I miss those, but I can breathe now. 
I did used to stay at Red Roof Inns years ago because of Jim Truman's ownership of them.
A number of years ago I remember seeing in GRM a photo of some BMW z-coupe running at the 'Ring or something. On the side was a mostly-nude female in a provocative position.
The caption read "We're not really sure what product this car is trying to sell, but we'll buy some!"
And no, I really don't care. I don't make purchasing decisions based on what is plastered on racecars. I'm all for the sponsors paying for racing so I can watch racing. People who buy things based on the company that sponsors a driver they like are just sheep....
I'd venture to say that Danica herself sells GoDaddy. If it was some random dude driving the same car, nobody would care what GoDaddy is.
racerdave600 wrote: Of course most people know its a terrible habit, but it is legal. I've never been a smoker, and I never plan to, but their advertising never made me go buy a Camel.
On that line, plenty of things that are major known sponsors are bad for you. How about all those Mountain Dew or Monster or Red Bull cars? Think any of those drinks aren't bad for you? All the cars sponsored by liquor? M&Ms? Historically the world's biggest vices always sponsored some of the highest profile motorsports.
I grew up watching the Camel Trophy off-road competitions. In the vids there were always lots of dudes smoking what were presumably camels. Every truck and every piece of gear was labeled with the Camel logo. As a kid I figured it was all sponsored by the cigarette company (rather than the clothing company that it was actually sponsored by).
Didn't make me go out and buy cigs so I could be a Range Rover adventurer or something.
Nor did all the Lucky Strike cars I used to idolize (just because they had a cool logo)
Years later I did start smoking. Marlboros....
Advertising on cars is a waste of advertising, unless you're selling car stuff (IMO).
There were marijuana and coke funded teams in 80s Trans-Am. I still watched.
As someone that used to work for a Pro race team, and was in the advertising business, its important to realize that advertising is not something that directly makes you go buy something. Typically, the average person has to see something a dozen or more times before they remember what it is. So what better way than to get seen by, hopefully, several million people at once with a live broadcast. Its infinitely more cost effective than buying adds.
More that than, I had a Toyota exec tell me that one of the main reasons they do it is to interact with other sponsors. More than one deal has been put together at a race, or a golf tournament, tennis, etc., etc.
In the end it is about sales, but its also about how they get those sales and the networking opportunities. Every business needs advertising of some sort, and the bigger your company, the bigger you have to go to remain out front in the public eye. There's a reason companies like Coca Cola spend so much every year.
In reply to racerdave600:
Right. That's what I tried to say earlier.
So, based on your experiences on a race team and in advertising, what do you think the answer to the question should be?
Do you think questionable sponsors change the dynamic for networking with other sponsors? Do they impact other sponsors' buying decisions?
CGLockRacer wrote: At one of the local oval tracks, there is a car sponsored by a gentlemens club, complete with dancer on a pole silhouette on the rear quarter panel.
A local strip club chain has a number of "Adopt a Highway" sections here in SE PA. I always chuckle when I see the signs.
racerdave600 wrote: As someone that used to work for a Pro race team, and was in the advertising business, its important to realize that advertising is not something that directly makes you go buy something. Typically, the average person has to see something a dozen or more times before they remember what it is. So what better way than to get seen by, hopefully, several million people at once with a live broadcast. Its infinitely more cost effective than buying adds. More that than, I had a Toyota exec tell me that one of the main reasons they do it is to interact with other sponsors. More than one deal has been put together at a race, or a golf tournament, tennis, etc., etc.
That makes sense. I heard something on Indy cars recently. Apparently most of the teams don't even talk TV viewers when courting sponsors these days. It's all about selling networking opportunities and hospitality at the events, which is a good job as Indy car gets almost zero viewers outside of the 500 or a crash making headlines.
Local racer here is sponsored by our local "lions den" as well as "booble" (I didn't look that up but I can guess). I did an actual double take when I saw the graphics but he just shrugged and said they pay for me to race. For him it didn't matter, for me it would on my car. On someone else's car I don't see that it really matters.
interesting conversation. I will add my opinion (and note that it matches my opinion for most other things).
Should there be regulations on who can advertise in motorsports?
Yes, BUT the regulations should come from the individual organizers, racers, fans, and stakeholders. We can't make rules that will be fair, but overall I believe the individuals will naturally regulate by supporting what is good and not supporting what is bad. This process is slowed by the flow of information travel (which keeps speeding up) and with faster info travel comes faster natural regulation. In the end, the honest wins against the dishonest.
Meh. If I was a pro racer, I'd take money from whoever would give it to me as long as it was legal especially if it was a gentleman's club and they threw in some extra perks.
What morality and propriety are we willing to sacrifice to get what we want? For the cocaine funded racing of IMSA (of which I was wholly unaware of when watching it way back when - even went to the last IMSA race at Riverside!), when you think about the lives that were (and continue to be) fundamentally destroyed by the drug, the brutality of the trade, and everything else, I would hope that I wouldn't have watched IMSA racing. I wouldn't now, especially given the apparent pervasiveness of it at the time.
Are cigarettes and payday loans in the same category? Both of them destructive in a sense, perhaps with less immediacy, but do they rise to the level of brutal cocaine dealers?
The nudie bar sponsors - do you really want your daughter to see that? Or your son, for that matter - the penchants of young men notwithstanding?
I think as society rolls along, we tend to be too accepting of things we shouldn't. I mean, how sad is it there are websites for adultery that advertise on TV. Because that activity always has such positive effects on people.
If one car advertises questionable sponsors, is that enough to stop watching the sport? Probably not, but a whole bunch of teams? For me, yes.
SVreX wrote: In reply to racerdave600: Right. That's what I tried to say earlier. So, based on your experiences on a race team and in advertising, what do you think the answer to the question should be? Do you think questionable sponsors change the dynamic for networking with other sponsors? Do they impact other sponsors' buying decisions?
I really don't care who advertises there as long as its legal. For the most part, at least in major series', most of the not so morally inclined tended not to have enough money to bankroll a big team. I do think in some ways however the cost of running a car or team is outpacing what sponsors are wanting to spend. I remember back in the '90's we were running a top tier Speedvision Cup car, and the cost was only a fraction of what it is today in what is mostly the same series. For instance, not only are the cars more costly (ours was about $50k off the showroom floor), but the allowed mods now add a massive cost to the running and offer no real advantage to the viewer or racer really. Seam welding comes to mind. It was cheap enough you could make a living pretty much by renting seats. Today, not so much.
By contrast, when we went Nascar, the cost of the actual car was much less, but every thing else was more expensive by a factor of 100. We were fortunate in that Toyota paid most of the bill in both series, but we had other sponsors to help the team make money.
Today, many racers have to take whatever sponsorships they can get. That's probably always been true however, but now we have many more televised races, and even "cheap" series' are getting expensive.
HappyAndy wrote:Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:They would need a Nikolai Volkoff car tookanaric wrote: They could be sponsored by lucky strikes and al qaida for all i care.An Al Qaida car would be awesome. It would be like WWF from the 80s with the Iron Sheik. Then, the USMC would need to put up a car to "fight" them... BTCC rules would make for plenty of action. E36 M3 talk and people hitting each other with chairs all up and down the pit lane. Every now and again an announcer has to rip off their shirt, flex a couple times... and jump into a car to do battle. NASCAR is already half-way there... they should embrace the silly.
I kind of want to make a crapcan racer done up as a Hulk Hogan that has a megaphone playing his "I'm a Real American" entrance song.
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