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closeFranchising might make even more sense in today's NASCAR
THATSRACIN.COM OPINION | DAVID POOLE
DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer
Saturday, Jun. 02, 2007
Seven years ago, I was sitting in a hotel lobby in Richmond, Va., having breakfast when Ed Shull, who worked with Gatorade’s NASCAR sponsorship program, joined me. As usual, we launched into a broad discussion about the future of NASCAR.
After that conversation, I wrote a column about how NASCAR might move toward franchising. Some of the ideas were Ed’s, some were mine and some were the product of our collective noodling over omelets and hash browns.
Here are a couple of paragraphs from that column: “One of the issues bubbling under the surface of stock-car racing ... is the question of franchises. Should NASCAR set a limit on the number of teams in the top circuits?
“There are those who dismiss the idea as being totally contrary to tradition, the idea that anybody who wants can try to make a race. But racing hasn't been like that for years. ... Without franchising, a team owner ... gets dimes to the dollar on something he has worked on for a lifetime. That's not right.”
Every word of that is still relevant today, and the basic framework of what we drew up would work even better now.
Since I don’t know the ins and outs of the laws that govern such things, “franchise” might not even be the right word. But it’s one we can understand, at least in concept, so I will use it anyway.
NASCAR establishes 50 franchises for the Nextel Cup Series. That’s 50 seats at the stock-car racing grown-ups’ table. Companies – not individual owners like a car owner and his mother, uncle and lawyer – currently with more than one team competing full-time in the Cup Series each get two slots. Single-car teams get one franchise.
By my count, that would fill 37 of the available slots – there are 15 full-time teams with two or more cars plus seven full-time single-car teams.
The remaining 13 slots would be sold by NASCAR via sealed bid. Rick Hendrick and Jack Roush could bid for two additional teams since the current maximum is four teams. Going forward, however, no company could own more than three franchises, and nobody now at three would be allowed to move up to four.
Each year for five years, owners pay a fee of $1 million for their first team, $2 million for a second team and $4 million for a third team. After five years, and a maximum payment of $35 million, the owner is fully vested and becomes the outright owner of his or her franchises.
Once the 50 franchises are sold, a new owner seeking entrée would have to buy the franchise from an existing owner. But, any franchise owner whose car doesn’t make a qualifying attempt in at least 25 races in any year forfeits the franchise to NASCAR, which then resells it to the highest bidder. That prevents someone from buy a franchises as an investment with no intention of running a team.
Why 50 franchises for 43-car race fields? That provides the franchise owners incentive to be competitive. You still have to earn your way into the races on Sunday.
OK, you’re thinking that this plan makes NASCAR awfully rich. No, it doesn’t. The money generated is used to enrich the sport in three major ways.
First, a portion of the franchise fees paid by owners in their first five years goes into an endowment that provides for former drivers in need of medical or other financial assistance. The sport gives back to the people who helped get it to where it is.
Another portion goes to back diversity efforts, which sorely need stronger financial support from the sport itself.
The rest provides the financial foundation for a new series, which I would call the “Futures Series.” Any driver who is 18 years old as of Jan. 1 can race in this series. He can run in it for a maximum of three seasons, until he turns 21.
The Futures Series could use current Nextel Cup cars, which will be obsolete at the end of this season. As Cup goes to the car of tomorrow, the old cars move into this new developmental series and teams use “crate” engines to keep costs down.
Futures Series races could be run on the same day as Cup races – an 11 a.m. start on Sundays, or a 1 p.m. start on Saturday night race days. They’d be short races, 100 or 200 laps, but long enough to have pit stops so it would be a developmental series for crew chiefs and crew members, too.
Fans could see the stars of today and also get a look at tomorrow, too. Maybe you wouldn’t even put these races on TV – give the fans who actually go to a race track something the people at home don’t get to watch.
Will this work? Is it even legal?
I don’t know.
But you can’t tell me it’s not something worth at least thinking about.