Kings Royal by Crown Royal? Corporate Sponsorship at Dirt Tracks

Originally Posted on Foxsports on April 8, 2006.

Crown Royal announced that it would be sponsoring a dirt track race - the King's Royal at Eldora.  Eldora, a revered dirt track built and promoted by Earl Baltes, is now owned by Tony Stewart.  It isn't hard to see that Stewart, who has already drawn Old Spice, Home Depot, and Coca Cola into  sponsorship at Eldora, has the midas touch when it comes to making executives pony up money for local dirt track racing.

For those who don't know, the King's Royal is a race for winged sprint cars, which has a $50,000 to win paycheck.  Traditionally, the World of Outlaws and the All-Star Sprints have raced at the July event.  This year, hopes are that the splintered series (WoO and National Sprint Tour) will both show up at the event.  Given the new corporate sponsorship of the race and the tremendous pay out, drivers would be foolish not to.  For drivers the sponsorship could be used as a platform to get additional sponsorship for their operations.

Fans flocked to the race before, and the sponsorship will not likely affect their attendance.  However, the question for fans is:  Can they take Stewart's corporate sponsorship boon and translate it into a boon for other tracks? 

Should promoters try to duplicate Stewart's success?  Many local dirt tracks have strong local audiences.  The more successful tracks have major races that draw out of towners to the track (Knoxville, Belleville, Anderson, Eldora etc.).  Those tracks have some level of corporate sponsorship, but Stewart's new conquests have upped the ante.  Of course, Stewart is a well-known name in sports given his numerous championships in various forms of racing.  His antics (and temper) are legendary and generate controversy whether earned or not.  But local promoters should look at this new sponsorship as an indication that corporate America may finally be waking up to the potential of small tracks, whose fans are fiercely loyal.

Stewart is hoping that the corporate-powers-that-be continue to shine on Eldora - and hoping that it will even open the television market to the potential of dirt track racing.