Subject: [NEXTEL-1] AT&T can't dial down backstretch Nextel blocks incoming calls

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 15:05:18 -0400

AT&T can't dial down backstretch  Nextel blocks incoming calls

BY NATE RYAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jul 13, 2003

JOLIET, Ill. Discovering who pays the freight in NASCAR requires a mere glance at
the 18-wheelers that haul the series' administrative apparatus around the country
every weekend. The red-and-white trucks parked in the Winston Cup garage sport the
names of nearly three dozen companies who spring big bucks to have their names
stenciled on as official backers.

Yet securing a spot on NASCAR's mobile command center doesn't guarantee prime
space on one of its cars.

AT&T is listed as the sport's telecommunications company, but the corporate giant
likely won't be allowed prominent display of its blue-and-white globe next year. A
seasonlong sponsorship trial designed to put AT&T on the BAM Racing Dodge of Ken
Schrader in 2004 has hit a snag.

"Nextel has blocked us," said Gus Larkin, the team's business manager.

The arrival of the Reston, Va.-based wireless provider as title sponsor next
season has created the potential for a bevy of sponsorship strife that didn't
exist in the three decades when Winston's tenure as NASCAR's biggest sugar daddy
limited conflict to tobacco companies.

Roush Racing President Geoff Smith supports Nextel's highly publicized entrance
but is concerned the new deal will result in too many restrictions for luring
companies that spend as much as $20 million annually on NASCAR sponsorship. Smith
fears the elimination of more than just wireless companies as sponsors, putting
the manufacturers of high-tech equipment such as Palm pilots, telephones and
computers also at risk.

"Most computer companies have wireless products being built into the computers,"
Smith said. "When the dust all settles, we're going to see that a very large
segment of the American marketing economy has been cut out of Winston Cup racing.

"One of NASCAR's great appeals was that it had been such an open, competitive
environment with multiple, competing brands could make a successful excursion. I'm
disappointed all of the positives of the deal had to come with this exclusionary
concept."

Nextel gained exclusive rights as part of a 10-year deal worth reportedly $750
million to become the main supporter of NASCAR's premier stock-car circuit. The
wireless company allowed current competitors Cingular and Alltel to remain as
primary car sponsors but retained veto power over newcomers.

"We have the exclusive rights in terms of wireless and other pieces of
telecommunications," Nextel CEO Tim Donahue said at the news conference last month
introducing his company. "Anyone trying to come in over the next 10 years, that
won't happen because it will be our exclusive right."

Those rights were exercised with AT&T's wireless arm, whose negotiations with
Roush Racing to become a primary Cup sponsor were terminated following the Nextel
announcement. But BAM Racing didn't expect to be affected because it was working
on a sponsorship with AT&T's consumer division, which is unaffiliated with
wireless, since February.

"We're a little confused to see cars with wireless companies grandfathered in,"
Larkin said. "Here we have an agreement with a nonwireless company that somehow is
not grandfathered in. We find that frustrating, and NASCAR understands that
frustration. They've been very supportive and bent over backwards to ask Nextel to
revisit this issue, but it seems they've drawn the line."

Larkin said Nextel offered a compromise if AT&T restricted its marketing and
didn't use its corporate logo, terms deemed unacceptable by the company. A NASCAR
spokesman wouldn't elaborate beyond saying AT&T wouldn't be permitted to expand
its support.

Tony Morgenthau, an investment banker who co-owns BAM with his wife, Beth Ann, has
spent millions since starting the team last year with a partial schedule. BAM is
running the full season this year largely out of Morgenthau's pocket but has
received support from AT&T as a primary sponsor in seven races since the season
opener at Daytona.

"I find it exceedingly hard to believe that Nextel didn't do due diligence and
realize that AT&T had a presence," Morgenthau said. "I don't think they really
cared. We were counting on them to be a major sponsor. Is it going to be a death
blow? Probably not, but it's certainly a major setback."

Smith worries the consequences eventually could stretch far beyond one team.

"The people that put the biggest message of NASCAR into the American public are
the team sponsors," Smith said. "They're the ones that take it into the grocery
stores, Wal-Marts and put it on local TV.

"What's best for the fans is that the marketing structure of the sport should be
conducted on a nonexclusionary basis. That's the American way."

http://www.timesdispatch.com/sports/MGBXEU0D2ID.html

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From: sparkie_rf <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 19:18:06 -0000

> conducted on a nonexclusionary basis. That's the American way."

Geoff Smith, is a smart son-of-a-gun. This NEXTEL-NASCAR deal, aka 
the New-Coke of sports, is BAD, BAD, BAD.

I guess McDonalds, Starbucks and Borders are now off-limits for 
NASCAR since they all have 802.11 operations. Wal-Mart will have 
802.11 pretty soon, etc.

The best thing to do now, is to void the deal, and start over. Delay 
will only aggrevate the situation.

Look like little boy-blunder, aka Brian France, really fsck'd up on 
this one.

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 15:32:26 -0400

Amazing-

Dealing with Nextel is like dealing with the devil. An associate of my last week had to threaten to post  intimate Nextel finical information on
Nextel-1 in order to get paid.
They  owed him almost six figures from work done last year. Since the have an on going relationship he did not worry until he found out they stiffed
the previous Engineering company for $75K. He was due payment (Net 90) in Jan. and has been getting the run around. After he made the threat a checked
showed up for the full amount! I never saw the papers but he said it would be "Embarrassing for Nextel". The funny thing was that nobody disputed his
work or the amount owed. They just kept giving excuses.

Nextel
"How Business Gets Done"

                                        -Dirty

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