AT&T sues NASCAR for sponsorship rights

by Brian White posted Mar 20th 2007 at 8:28PM

When you're a big telecom outfit and you don't get your way with sponsoring certain events, better bring out the hankies when you start whining. That's just what AT&T did in a recent tiff with NASCAR, after racing officials refused to slap the AT&T logo on Jeff Burton's car. The Number 31 car already had the Cingular logo on it, but as AT&T eradicates all traces of that brand, it apparently wanted the AT&T logo instead (understandable, we suppose). The beef, though, comes from NASCAR's current sponsorship deal with Nextel for the Nextel Cup; with AT&T calling the logo placement an "integral part'' of the its brand name change, NASCAR is prohibiting the company's ability to "attract new customers and retain existing ones.'' Let us see here: logo change equals automatic new customers... sounds pretty logical to us.

Filed under: ATT, Sprint

Tags: cingular, Culture, NASCAR

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Robbie @ Mar 20th 2007 9:58PM

i'm no lawyer, but it seams reasonable to me. I mean wow, cingular is already all over that car. but what should nextel have to say about it? correct me if im wrong but didnt they recently undergo a name change (/addition)? i seem to recall seeing "SprintNextel" "Sprint together with Nextel" "Nextel only from Sprint" everywhere. Why would "Cingular the new AT&T" be any different? And it's not a new deal or anything. It's simply Cingular undergoing an "identity transformation" just like Nextel did.

Neutral

JFR @ Mar 20th 2007 10:48PM

When Nextel became the lead sponsor for the "Winston Cup", they put in a clause that NO other telecom could be a car sponsor. Alltel and Cingular were grandfathered. Every wonder why there is no Verizon Cup car? Cingular wants/needs to change its logo and Sprint/Nexthell says that constitutes a "new" sponsor and nulls the grandfathering. Sorry, Nexthell, that's a load of crap..

Neutral

Chain Fury @ Mar 20th 2007 11:35PM

It's all messed up. There is a Verizon Wireless car, but it can only race in the Busch Series because of that clause by Nextel. The thing that I don't get is that NASCAR told Robby Gordon that he had to remove Motorola from his car in order to race.

Neutral

Josh @ Mar 21st 2007 3:01AM

With Cingular being the primary sponsor of Jeff Burton, I think it is highly ridiculous for this clause to prevent AT&T from changing the logo. Why should AT&T spend money on sponsoring a car with a brand name that they no longer use?

Technically, if the clause states that no other telecom company can sponsor a racer, then AT&T should be allowed to make the logo change anyway!

Despite what Sprint-Nextel might be trying to say, it is the same company with a new name...there is no new telecom entering the sponsorships.

Personally, I think Sprint-Nextel is the "whiner" in this instance.

Neutral

Will @ Mar 21st 2007 9:31AM

motorola had to be removed because they were advertising a verizon phone...and even if they were advertising nextel phones they don't only make phones for nextel so nascar felt that they would be advertising for other telecom companies. so motorola changed the scheme and put "digital audio players" on the car and were allowed to sponsor

Neutral

Fred @ Mar 21st 2007 10:40AM

Quote from Will: motorola had to be removed because they were advertising a verizon phone...and even if they were advertising nextel phones they don't only make phones for nextel.

fyi Motorola is the exclusive phone maker of Nextel with the exception of the Blackberries. iDen is a part of Motorola

Neutral

Fred @ Mar 21st 2007 10:42AM

never mind didnt read close enough

Neutral

tc1uscg @ Mar 22nd 2007 3:28PM

If AT&T is so concerned about "brand awarness", why do the vast majority of it's fleet still bare the SBC and some still have Ameritech logos? I mean, if they are that worried about it, they should update it's service fleet and worry about a race car later. I say this. I hope Nextel sends them packing as soon as Cingular is no more (as a brand that is). All I can say is too bad. Now spread all that cost savings to your customers..

Neutral

MasterCKO @ Mar 21st 2007 5:46PM

as JFR said, Cingular and Alltel were grandfathered in. However, IIRC, the clause in the contract that JFR talks about specifically mentions existing telecom teams making logo changes as being no good (in addition to not allowing new telecoms to sponsor cars).

So while one might say that Sprint/Nextel are whiners (though honestly, I can't see why they wouldn't put that kind of clause in such a contract) or whatever, NASCAR is obligated by the contract that they signed to do what they did.

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