From Scene Daily

Roush Fenway Racing President Geoff Smith should only be negotiating to renew the one NASCAR Sprint Cup sponsorship he has open – the No. 17 car and DeWalt – for 2010. But Smith’s organization is working on helping nearly all of its Cup sponsors (Crown Royal, 3M and Aflac) find other companies willing to pony up the money to buy some races for 2010 and beyond even though they have contracts obligating them for the entire season.
 
Smith said the companies have requested help, and it’s imperative in these economic times that the organization find more sponsors willing to share some of the costs.
 
DeWalt, whose contract is up after the 2009 season, has also indicated it wants a partner. The only sponsor that has not requested a partner is UPS.
 
“The exodus of the sport by sponsors is negligible,” Smith said last week at Las Vegas. “Very few have left. When we go talk to our sponsors, every one of our sponsors wants to be here, wants to stay.
 
“But every one of them has economic challenges that they need to meet. Those challenges translate to us to be searching for additional sponsors to partner up with our team sponsors in four of our programs.”

A new sponsor could be on one of those cars by the end of 2009 if there is a commitment for future years, Smith said.
 
“It’s one thing to force somebody to honor their contract, which we need to do because we’ve committed the money to go operate, but it ultimately leads to dissatisfaction in the relationship and the renewal prospects and new sponsor prospects in 2011 and 2012 and beyond become less,” Smith said. “We have every incentive to recognize the issues that our sponsors are facing and to help in any way that we can.”
 
Of course, Smith is trying to get Kenseth’s sponsorship for 2010 done while the driver is particularly hot. Kenseth, who went winless in 2008, won the first two races of the season.
 
“Matt couldn’t have picked a better time to start out [strong],” Smith said. “When they didn’t when a race last year and when you have three-quarters of the garage trying to sell against us, they’d be saying, ‘Well, Matt is done, he’s all washed up, don’t put your money there, put it with me.’
 
“That [winning] just dispels that. Matt has without question the most premier program that is up for renewal.”

Even though Roush Fenway can have only four Cup teams next year, it also is responsible for sponsorship for Yates Racing, so it is continuing to court companies to sponsor Cup teams. On an initial call, Smith said the organization will offer anything open in its portfolio. The one thing his company won’t do is to stagger sponsorships on a car because the organization has to commit to a salary for the driver and needs the sponsorship to back it up.
 
“It’s a financial disaster to make some of the commitments we’ve made to drivers that are unconditional and then to find yourself signing up with a sponsor for half the races but having to commit to run all 38,” Smith said. “We really need to find the additional partners that are going to make these programs whole.”
 
Smith said that car owners must realize that they need to spend money on sales. He said he has “a whole team” making cold calls about sponsorship.
 
“Our sponsors are relaying to us an opinion that things will be very tough through 2010,” Smith said. “And we need to use all our energy. The issue in the garage is so few owners, in my opinion, have made the investment in sales and marketing personnel. … There’s a bit of a tendency in the garage, which is to act like the relationship is between the cheetah and the hyena.
 
“The cheetah goes for the kill, and the hyena is waiting to take the kill from the cheetah. We need more cheetahs than hyenas to make this sport work.”
 
The end result needs to be more companies sponsoring cars because fewer and fewer businesses can afford to sponsor the teams at the going rates, Smith said.

“Not everybody is going to be able to cannibalize sponsors from other teams to keep the sport working properly,” Smith said. “There are going to have to be new sponsors brought in.
 
“It’s a really good time for new sponsors to come in because so frequently the bigger brands that are in the sport want to keep so much control over their programs that there have been fewer opportunities for new sponsors to join those premier teams.”