Subject: [NEXTEL-1] It's wait-see game on Nextel affiliation

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 12:06:48 -0500

Posted on Tue, Feb. 17, 2004
It's wait-see game on Nextel affiliation

<SNIP>

R.J. Reynolds and its Winston tobacco brand fit that atmosphere perfectly, and
benefited tremendously from the association over the 30 years it was the sport's
primary sponsor.

Does Nextel stand to reap such rewards? Doubtful.

For example, it was easy to find a race fan at Daytona this year smoking a
cigarette - though it was admittedly less common since Winston was not on the
premises handing out free smokes. It was not as easy to find a fan chirping back
and forth with a buddy using Nextel's walkie-talkie function. Nearly impossible,
actually.

Perhaps NASCAR fans everywhere are planning to ditch their current cell phone
providers and get a Nextel. But it hasn't happened yet.

Marketers will tell you that it's all about brand exposure. It's all about how
many times your company's name is said or printed as a result of the
sponsorship. This column alone has already mentioned the company six times. But
in a year or two, will it have seen any real results from this partnership.

And if not, will NASCAR soon be out hunting for another title sponsor?
Several fans this week expressed concern that Nextel was catering to the
corporate set instead of the common fan, which they saw as a reversal from
Winston's stance. NASCAR blossomed into a mainstream sport over the past decade,
and not all of the reasons lie with fast cars and big TV deals.

The root of the sport's popularity lies in the grassroots fan. Turn it into a
corporate circus, and those fans might stop coming. Ask baseball what happens
when you forsake the common fan in favor of big business - empty ballparks and
sagging TV ratings

 http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/sports/7969523.htm