WANT TO READ ABOUT A 20 MILLION DOLLAR A YEAR DEAL IN NASCAR?

Staff Charlotte Business Journal

The days of the orange, No. 20 Home Depot car are coming to an end, Street & Smith s SportsBusiness Journal reported .

The Atlanta-based home-improvement retail giant, which has been a primary NASCAR sponsor since 1999, will leave the sport after its contract with Joe Gibbs Racing ends this season, said sources familiar with The Home Depot Inc.s plans. The companys exit comes after several years of reductions in its marketing commitment to NASCAR.

Home Depot (NYSE:HD) and Joe Gibbs Racing declined to comment.

Sources said Joe Gibbs Racing is in talks with Dollar General about filling the void left by Home Depot. The discount retailer, which already is primary sponsor for 27 races on the No. 20 Sprint Cup car driven by Matt Kenseth , is expected to sign on as the primary sponsor of the No. 20 car for 30-plus races in 2015.

A deal of that size with a top-10 driver is valued at more than $20 million a year.

A Dollar General spokeswoman said the company hasnt finalized its NASCAR plans beyond 2014.

Home Depot began reducing its marketing spend in NASCAR several years ago. In 2012, the company declined to renew its title sponsorship of Speeds NASCAR program Race Day presented by The Home Depot . It had sponsored the show for six years.

The end of that TV deal coincided with a 12-race reduction in Home Depots sponsorship of the No. 20 car, after the company had sponsored all 36 races for a decade. Home Depot followed that with a five-race reduction last year and a 10-race reduction this year. It then shifted its Home Depot logo off the car and replaced it with the logo of its tool company, Husky.

Tim,did your sponsor pay like this ? mine sure didnt and they were family --- but then again we didnt have Dave Fulton selling our racing program..

updated by @johnny-mallonee: 12/05/16 04:04:08PM

While I can't swear to this, my guess is that they will shift where they are putting their money in the future. The College Football Hall Of Fame is being built here in Atlanta (where the Nascar Hall Of Fame SHOULD have gone) so it stands to reason that because HD already has a big presence on the ESPN Gameday show on Saturdays and because they are headquartered out of Atlanta that they will play a big part in sponsoring the Hall and other things in the future. Also- watch the sponsorship of the new Atlanta football stadium closely- Home Depot would be a logical sponsor given that Falcons owner Arthur Blank was one of the Home Depot's founders.

Johnny, to answer your question to me, most of my sponsors paid a flat fee before the season began. When we picked up Payne HVAC in the third year, they actually had a contract. As I remember the terms, I got a large chunk before the season started and then a graduated check AFTER 10 races depending on performance and then another graduated check AFTER the next 10 races. That was a big time deal for me and I sure in that series back in those days, but I did have business savvy to know that it was a good deal for me. The fourth and fifth year of my "career", I was driving for teams and being paid.

As for sponsors bailing out, it's like Jeff said last night on the show. NASCAR put all their eggs in the TV Contracts basket and TV ratings are falling faster than Danica through the field so sponsor know there are fewer and fewer folks in the stands and fewer and fewer folks watching it on television so they are cutting their losses. Let's not forget Nationwide ends its sponsorship of the series at the end of this year so what's that going to do to that series? Perhaps we will be returning to the early days after all when the Rousch, Gibbs, Hendrick folks can't make a buck with the big dollar sponsorships.

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What a change! It's been awhile since I've checked in and I'm quite surprised. It may take me awhile to figure it our but first look it's really great.

Wouldn't surprise me if they didn't have a sponsor next year. Then the big question becomes - what are we gonna call this thing? The way they've loosely tossed around names like, Grand National, Grand American, Modified, Sportsman, stritcly Stock, Cup and others, leaves the all their series with no clear definition sans sponsor.

The people that will benefit are Nationwide because that's what most fans will call it, and they'll get free advertising. I know that I still call it the Busch series. And Craftsman Trucks. There's no unifying name that they're willing to stick with for more than a couple of years. The same is happening to sports stadiums.