NASCAR Web Traffic

[admin]

I was at the races last week and realized that the NASCAR is one of the most popular sporting events. I had never been to race before but was given tickets to a NEXTEL Cup race in New Hampshire last week.

Three things struck me:

1) The tickets were more than $100 Each

I had never realized that going to the races was so expensive. In addition to purchasing tickets fans also have to pay for meals, lodging and travel costs.

2) There were a lot of people there… I mean a real lot of people.

One of my friends that follows NASCAR said most races have 100's of Thousands of people in attendance… and some of the major events have over 1 million fans at the race.


3) The fans have a lot of gadgets

Radios, Scanners, Cell Phones, PDA's, Handheld TV's & Laptops… these people are "wired"…or maybe I should say "wired-less".


Put those three things together and you have a lot of people with a significant amount of disposable income that can be easily reached….and that is just the people at the race (never mind the people watching on TV or following the race results in various sports websites).

Not only is this potentially a good niche market… but since fans know drivers by their sponsor as much as by their name or number… then this also provides a great advertising opportunity.

Now I realize that sponsoring a NEXTEL Cup racecar is well beyond the budget of most websites, but there are a whole group of local & regional racing series. A website could easily sponsor one of those cars, build immediate brand recognition and connect with this fastest growing segment of sporting fans.

[admin]

I actually grew up not far from a very popular regional racetrack myself. Ironically, they call themselves "The Nation's Site of Excitement".

Initially, I thought this idea had potential. It seemed logical that placing your URL across the hood of a local racecar could be a good investment and generate a fair amount of web traffic.

But, then I started researching the idea and discovered the facts.

Racers sell Full or Partial sponsorships.

A full sponsorship guarantees your name is the only ad on the car and costs approx $40,000-$60,000 per season.

For partial sponsorships you can have your URL on a fender, a quarter panel, the hood, or the back of a car. Each of those spots costs between $10,000-$20,000 per season.

Never mind how much exposure you can get or how much web traffic it could generate…there are much better ways to spend that amount of money.

But, if you have your mind set on sponsoring something… then maybe you should try sponsoring a city bus or a taxi cab. Prices will vary from city-to-city, but I found where I live it costs about $100 per month for a "Taxi-Top" or a "City Bus Banner".

In fact, if you get creative you may be able to get something cheaper. For example, I talked to a taxi cab that has an ad for the local car wash. They worded out a deal. The carwash gets an ad and the taxi gets 1 free carwash a day.

Another thing that people may not have thought of is in-car ads. I am sure everyone has seen the new trend of placing ads in public bathrooms. You could easily put something similar in a taxi or in a bus. This can either be in the form of a flyer on the wall or take the idea 1 step further and have the taxi or rental car give each client one of your flyers when the get in the car (that way the have something to read while sitting in traffic… and they can take it with them).

Lastly… don't think that you have to sponsor a vehicle. Remember that carwash… they do special charity carwashes every weekend (as fund raisers for Boy Scouts and things like that). Anyone could team-up with the carwash company, make a tax-deducible donation to that weekend's charity and be considered the "sponsor" for that weeks carwash.

Then every car wash customer will receive a flyer with your marketing info on it…or you could just pass out business cards.

I agree that regional racing seemed like a great advertising opportunity… but I recommend you spend your marketing budget elsewhere.

[tricky_linux]

haha... it's more like a blog
anyway, they said they were going to bulid a NASCAR track in Houston area.
but ya.. hope they are really going to do that
but i wonder how much more traffic does it really give u?
maybe 0 or 10 to the some power?