The 200-MPH Billboard: The Inside Story of How Big Money Changed NASCAR
320
The 200-MPH Billboard: The Inside Story of How Big Money Changed NASCAR
320eBook
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Overview
What began on the dusty racetracks of the rural South is now a world-class enterprise, as closely watched by Wall Street as by hometown racing fans. How NASCAR grew from its provincial roots to become a big business of international proportions is the story Mark Yost tells in The 200-MPH Billboard.
A seasoned sports and business reporter for the Wall Street Journal and contributor to the New York Times and the Sports Business Journal, Yost demystifies the economics and politics behind NASCAR sponsorship. His book takes us behind the scenes of some of the head-turning corporate deals that altered the way NASCAR does business.
From Junior Johnson’s contract with Darrell Waltrip and Mountain Dew, which announced a significant change, to deals between the likes of Dale Jr. and Budweiser, Tony Stewart and Home Depot, NASCAR and Fox Television, this book clearly tracks the subtle and not-so-subtle transformations that corporate sponsorship has wrought in recent years. And it offers a rare insider’s look at what these changes have meant for NASCAR and its devoted fans.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781616737597 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Motorbooks |
| Publication date: | 08/15/2007 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Mark Yost has reported on sports and business for nearly twenty years. He has written for the Dow Jones Newswire and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. Yost continues to write for the Wall Street Journal Leisure and Arts pages, where he writes about the business and economics of sports, as well as Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal and other publications. Yost is also the author of Tailgating, Sacks, and Salary Caps: How the NFL Became the Most Successful Sports League in History. He lives in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, but calls Brooklyn, New York, his home.
Mark Yost has reported on sports and business for nearly twenty years. He has written for the Dow Jones Newswire and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. Yost continues to write for the Wall Street Journal Leisure and Arts pages, where he writes about the business and economics of sports, as well as Street&Smith's Sports Business Journal and other publications. Yost is also the author of Tailgating, Sacks, and Salary Caps: How the NFL Became the Most Successful Sports League in History.He lives in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, but calls Brooklyn, New York, home.
Mark Yost has reported on sports and business for nearly twenty years. He has written for the Dow Jones Newswire and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. Yost continues to write for the Wall Street Journal Leisure and Arts pages, where he writes about the business and economics of sports, as well as Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal and other publications. Yost is also the author of Tailgating, Sacks, and Salary Caps: How the NFL Became the Most Successful Sports League in History. He lives in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, but calls Brooklyn, New York, his home.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsForeword
Introduction
Fifty Years of Racing at Daytona
One
A Good Old Boy Goes Courting
How NASCAR Wooed Corporate America
Two
The Suite Life
Inside NASCAR Corporate Hospitality
Three
Betting the Farm
The Early Days of NASCAR
Four
From Rags to Riches
Junior Johnson Turns Tobacco into Gold
Five
The Sponsorship Shepherds
Four Hundred Cases of Coffee and a Side of Viggy
Six
Mama, I'm Gon' Be on the TV
The Small Screen Revolution
Seven
When NASCAR Comes to Town
How Much Is That Track in the Midwest?
Eight
Speed Dating for Dollars
Inside the NASCAR B2B Council
Nine
See the Brown Truck Go
How UPS Took NASCAR to Mexico
Ten
Fantasy Accidents
Allstate's All-Star Ad Campaign
Eleven
What's DLP?
Educating the Public at 200 Miles Per Hour
Twelve
The Military Marches In
Recruiting at the Racetrack
Thirteen
Bringing the Big Show to the Little Store
How Associate Sponsorship Changed the Game
Fourteen
Teaching Old Brands New Tricks
A Wunderkind Helps Goodyear Leverage its Legacy
Fifteen
We're An American Brand
Toyota Comes to NASCAR
Epilogue
What's Next for NASCAR
What People are Saying About This
NASCAR.com, Sept. 25, 2007
“If you have any questions about how NASCAR went from southern-based fixture to by-God sporting phenomenon, you can find the answer in Mark Yost’s new book … Some books of this type leave you gasping for air in the midst of statistics, concepts and strategies; this one doesn’t … This offering from Motorbooks is exhaustively researched … Yost’s writing style is easy and comparatively less dense than almost all of them, yet he still gets the story across in language plain and proper … This book gets a strong buy from this writer.”
Publishers Weekly
“Business and sports reporter Yost takes on the rise of NASCAR, bringing readers into the deals that have turned a Southern good ol' boy racing circuit into a clean-shaven marketing goliath.”
“NASCAR fans with an interest in business history will enjoy this 320-page book, which examines how NASCAR grew into a multibillion-dollar business through profitable advertising deals with corporate sponsors.” –Gayot.com
SpeedTVBooks.com, August 2007
Book Review by Gregg Leary
“A thought-provoking read that documents a largely untold side of NASCAR racing.”
Area Auto Racing News, Oct. 23, 2007
“The book is an interesting and fast read.”
National Speed Sport News, December 2007
NationalSpeedSportNews.com, December 2007
“Let me recommend the ideal holiday gift for a racing fan: Mark Yost’s engaging book, ‘The 200 MPH Billboard,’ subtitled ‘The Inside Story of How Big Money Changed NASCAR.’ It is an intriguing story, hard to put down … Both of these books belong in every serious fan’s library.”
Introduction
In 2007, Jimmie Johnson, the defending NASCAR Nextel Cup champion, flew down on a private jet and spent the week on the 150 he owns with fellow driver Jeff Gordon. When he was at the track, Johnson spent his down time in his new $1.4 million motor coach, which features two forty-two-inch plasma screen TVs, a master suite with marble shower and gold fixtures, and a hyperbaric chamber that he uses to raise the oxygen level of his blood before races.
All the cars in the 1959 race were truly "stock." In the 1950s, many drivers literally drove their car to the track, raced it, and drove it home (if they didn't wreck it). No one car looked alike. There were coups, convertibles.
In the 2007 Daytona 500, the only way you could tell the make of car was to look at the front bumper, where the words "Fusion" or "Camry" were printed. Except for the paint scheme, every car looked alike. Jimmie Johnson's car was a Chevrolet Monte Carlo in name only, a distant cousin of the one being sold in showrooms. Johnson's car had spent hours in a wind tunnel, sculpted to make it as aerodynamic as possible. The headlights were just stickers.
In 1959, none of the practice, qualifying, or even the Daytona 500 were televised. There were very few sponsors. Allen drove a '57 Chevy, finished eleventh and earned four hundred dollars.
In 2007, every minute of Daytona SpeedWeeks was broadcast somewhere-ESPN, Fox, SPEED, DirecTV. The lineup of sponsors was all encompassing, each paying about twenty milliondollars to be on the hood of one of the forty-three entries. Johnson, a former motocross and off-road truck racer from El Cajon, California, finished a disappointing thirty-ninth and won $298,886.
Allen didn't have a sponsor for the 1959 Daytona 500. In fact, most drivers didn't.
"Sponsorship was race to race," Allen said. "You'd maybe get fifty dollars, which would pay your entry fee and gas money."
Pure Oil, one of the earliest NASCAR sponsors, understood the tough financial times these drivers faced. Before they left Daytona every February, drivers were allowed to pull up to the gas pumps and fill up the trucks they used to tow their race cars and the gas cans they used during the race.
"That was a godsend," Allen said, "because most years I didn't have gas money to get home."
Many drivers came to races in the early days without a car or a sponsor. They would just show up with their helmet and look for a car owner who needed a driver. The deals were done with a handshake.
Jimmie Johnson's team is sponsored by Lowe's home improvement stores, number forty-two on the Fortune 500 list. The company pays a reported twenty-five million dollars a year to have its name on the hood of Johnson's car for all thirty-six events of the NASCAR Nextel Cup season. The Mooresville, North Carolina, company also sponsors the Busch series car driven by Kyle Busch.
Every minute of Jimmie Johnson's schedule during Daytona SpeedWeeks was accounted for in the BlackBerry of his public relations assistant and his business manager. Every deal he does is scrutinized by his attorney. Every contract is negotiated by his agent. . .