The View from Here: The Business of NASCAR

Well, NASCAR has filed a countersuit against AT&T, seeking $100 million in damages as well as the legal privilege of tossing AT&T — and all telecommunication companies other than Nextel — out of NASCAR in 2008.

Notwithstanding that $100 million is a sizable chunk of change for anyone, the real story is the second one — the right of NASCAR to toss anyone out of sponsorship. It seems to me that NASCAR has welcomed a variety of sponsors into the sport, although sponsorship deals are between owners and the sponsors. What NASCAR is now seeking — and if successful, could do the same to any sponsor — is the ability to cancel sponsorship contracts even though it does not negotiate those contracts for owners.

Can you imagine the MLB commissioner telling the Tampa Bay Devil Rays that the team needs to change the name of Tropicana Field or ordering the Colorado Rockies to drop “Coors” from the name of its playing field? (AT&T today extended its sponsorship of Jeff Burton's car.) In essence, that’s what NASCAR is seeking. Makes one wonder whether Sprint/Nextel is the driving force behind NASCAR’s countersuit or whether NASCAR is in a snoot because it didn’t get its way earlier.

We’ll know on August 2!

Jon