
Some blame the economy, some blame TV and the fact that many stayed home to watch the race on ESPN from the HD comfort of their living room sofas. Some say the bloom is off the NASCAR rose, in part because of rabid corporate sponsorship that covered every inch of the cars, the track, the drivers and the layers of the sport.
Corporations now seem to have grokked this, and so sponsorship dollars are way off as well. Allstate, which for the last 5 years had title sponsorship of the Allstate Brickyard 400, let it expire this year. The race ran simply as Brickyard 400 without a sponsor. All this is part of a national trend -- 20 of the top 50 sports ad spenders cut budgets in 2009. Some, such as AT&T Wireless and Chevrolet, cut them as much as 30 percent, according to a SportsBusiness Journal analysis of data from The Nielsen Cos.
And those lack of sponsorship dollars meant there was less money to spend on advertising and promotion.
The Brickyard 400 digital footprint, which includes a web site with archival footage and a blog and flickr page, was adequate but not enough to make up the lack of awareness from a dearth of TV and Print.
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