I just heard that Dollar General was dumping Nascar and Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of the current season. The company, based in Tennessee said they would have all the details later today. Guess they didn't like all the empty seats on the TV.
DG is based here in Goodlettsville, TN - just north of Nashville. They've had a recent CEO change. The former one was a big believer in racing. The new one, apparently not so much.
I know a couple of folks who work for DG. I tried mooching tix and passes from them a handful of times over the years but without success. Consistent message is that no one from corporate generally got freebies. The primary purpose of the marketing spend for them was to engage with their vendors vs. promoting the Dollar General brand itself. We don't shop at DG except on rare occasion, but I've seen a few comments that their stores had almost zero NASCAR branded in-store advertising.
So with this news, I tend to think it's less a concern about race attendance and ratings as it was a change in philosophy by the suits in the board room. Are the two related? Perhaps. But maybe they could still accomplish their goal of building relationships with their vendors and store operators on less visible and less costly basis.
