IN MY OPINION

Numbers that would make even Carl Sagan blush

THATSRACIN.COM OPINION

By David Poole

The Charlotte Observer

Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008

I am as suspicious as the next guy when it comes to the way numbers can be played with in assessing things like economic impact a Sprint Cup race has on a community or what value a sponsor gets out of backing a race team.

Such things are an inexact science, at best. But some numbers came out last week that are too staggering not to look at.

Joyce Julius & Associates monitors sports sponsorships, but it is best known for measuring exposure given to sponsors during televised sports coverage.

In NASCAR, for instance, Joyce Julius looks at telecasts of races in NASCAR's three top series and clocks how long a sponsor's logo can be seen clearly. It counts each second and then multiplies that by what it would cost to buy a second of advertising on that telecast.

According to this year's research, Jimmie Johnson's sponsors had their respective logos shown for 59hours, 28minutes, 39seconds. By the Joyce Julius formula, that means Johnson's sponsors got $510,161,750 worth of exposure.

Carl Edwards, who finished second in the standings to Johnson, had his sponsors shown for 58:50:11. That equates to $495,908,515 in exposure.

Add those numbers and you're talking about north of $1billion (that's with a b) in exposure for the top two cars.

OK, you're thinking, there's no way that's right. A billion dollars?

I'm with you.

But for the sake of argument let's say the Joyce Julius formula gives 10 times the actual value to each second of logo exposure a sponsor gets. In other words, it's 90percent inflated.

Even at that, we'd be talking about $100million in exposure for sponsors of Johnson and Edwards. All of a sudden sponsorships costing $20million or $25million don't seem terribly absurd.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch got the next best numbers this year in Cup. The top 10 Cup teams got more than $4.3billion in exposure for sponsors.

Johnson's primary sponsor got $200million in exposure. Chevrolet got $67.8million. Edwards actually got more exposure during the Chase, Joyce Julius' report said, $225million to $201million.

Nationwide Series champion Clint Bowyer got $76.8million of exposure to lead that series. Ron Hornaday, who was second to Johnny Benson in the battle for the Truck Series title, led that series at $24.4million to $19.2million for Benson.

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Stocks for Tots will mark its 20th anniversary Dec.9 at the Charles Mack Citizens Center in downtown Mooresville.

The event allows fans to get autographs from drivers and celebrities from several forms of motorsports. The admission fee will be $10 plus an unwrapped toy that has a value of $10 or more. Proceeds will go to Stop Child Abuse Now of Iredell County.

The event will begin at 5:30p.m. Doors will open for autographs at 7p.m. Fans must have a wristband to get autographs. Wristband distribution will be at The Pit go-kart racing facility in Mooresville from 9a.m. until 3p.m. on the day of the event, then will move to the Citizens Center.

For more information, including a continuously updated list of people scheduled to be at the event, go to stocksfortots.com.

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BRIEFLY NOTED: Edwards is the fourth quarter winner in the Driver of the Year voting, getting 10 first-place votes. Johnson finished second. He got seven first-place votes. … Cup team co-owner Ray Evernham has completed his deal to purchase East Lincoln Speedway and said that might not be the last track he buys. “I will try to save race tracks to keep them from becoming shopping malls,” Evernham said on Sirius NASCAR Radio. … Motorsports engineers will gather Tuesday through Thursday at the Embassy Suites in Concord for the Society of Automotive Engineers annual conference. Peter Wright, a technical consultant for the FIA, the governing body of FormulaOne racing, will be the keynote speaker. … Lowe's Motor Speedway will hold its Christmas tree lighting ceremony Monday. Refreshments will be served beginning at 5p.m. with the formal program starting at 6. … Highlights from the Nationwide Series banquet can be seen at noon today on ESPN2. Live coverage of Friday's Cup Series banquet from New York will begin at 9p.m. on ESPN Classic.

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