Richmond Loses Crown Royal Sponsorship to Indy

Wonder if this had anything to do with Doug Fritz losing his job as head honcho at Richmond? PattyKay several weeks back well documented the Crown Royal sponsorship situation up to that time. And the rich get richer.

AP Reports:

RIR loses sponsor

Crown Royal is moving its "Your Hero's Name Here 400" Sprint Cup race from Richmond International Raceway to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2012.. The whiskey maker says it has a multiyear deal to become the title sponsor for what has been known as the Brickyard 400. Financial details were not released. The company plans to hold a contest to select the name of a member of the U.S. military or a police officer or firefighter to be incorporated into the title. The announcement came Thursday at the historic 2.5-mile oval, which is hosting its annual Sprint Cup race Sunday. The official name of the race is the "Crown Royal Presents the [honoree's name] 400." Speedway CEO Jeff Belskus says he expects a race day crowd that will be about the same size as last year's, more than 100,000, though five sections of grandstands will be closed. He says ticket sales have been better over the past month. Crown Royal became the title sponsor of RIR's spring race in 2006, when the event was known as the Crown Royal 400. At that race, Crown Royal announced that subsequent races would be named for a person, based on judging of essays submitted by fans. Starting with the 2010 race, the event was named for members of the U.S. military. Crown Royal said 17,000 people voted on the 2011 race, which was named for Matthew and Daniel Hansen. In a statement after the Indianapolis announcement, Heather Boyd, Crown Royal's senior brand manager, said, "For the past six years, we have had a fantastic partnership with Richmond International [Raceway]. They've been wonderful partners in helping us to build this program to what it's been today. "We'll continue to look at different ways to partner with them." Dennis Bickmeier, who became president of RIR in early July, said in a statement that he is confident the track can find another race sponsor. "We've had fun promoting the 'Your Name Here 400' at Richmond International Raceway," Bickmeier said. "Our track has a very unique branding position, and this race added to the uniqueness of that brand. The 'Your Name Here 400' was not just a fun event to promote; it was a source of tremendous pride for us as a brand and a track promoter." In June, Crown Royal announced that it would drop its sponsorship of Sprint Cup driver Matt Kenseth and the No. 17 Roush Fenway car after the 2011 season.

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

spot on


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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"

Remember.....when one of the concerns of the Hulman family was the eventual overshadowing of the Indianapolis 500 by the Brickyard 400? Seems a long time and a different culture ago. The Brickyard was deliberately conceived as a 400 miler with a Saturday date to keep it in the shadows. Even with all of that going on, the place looked packed, and instantly became a marquee event. There sure weren't any sections of grandstand being closed.

The one caution I would give Crown Royal about anIndy sponsorship is that the venue and its previous Brickyard 400 name may well be bigger than the Crown Royal name. Don't know how many folks remember the year STP tried to buy into the Daytona 500 as the Daytona 500 presented by STP. The press was not real quick to pick up on that and STP spent a bundle. Ditto a Mountain Dew Southern 500.... say, what? To me it's the Southern 500 still. I had a little easier time in 1981 when Wrangler Jeans gave Richmond its first event sponsorship. We, as many other sponsors, had paybacks to make. The Sanforized Company (owned by Cluett Peabody) who owned the rights to the no-shrink Sanforized denimprocesscontributed $40,000 to the sponsorship, thus we billed it as the Wrangler Sanforset 400, which quickly became the Wrangler 400 to the press corps. I suspect the spirits folks will have a difficult time getting the media to call their event anything other than the established Brickyard 400 name.


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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"