Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

BYMICHAEL SMITH STAFF WRITER The NHRA and longtime partner Auto Club of Southern California have renewed a bundle of sponsorships for nearl y $5 million a year over five years. AutoClub,which has been with the NHRA for the past 16 years , has the naming r ights to the NHRA-owned drag strip in Pomona, Calif., as well as title sponsors hip of the season-endingevent there in November.The largest AAAaffiliate in the country, Auto Club is adding title sponsors hip of the NHRA:s May i _ _ ..;: race at Gateway, near St. Louis. Auto Club has struck those deals one by Auto Club's renewal of NHRA sponsorships places it among motorsports' mostprolific sponsors. one over th e years, including presen tin g sponso rs hi p of th e Wally Parks NHRA to prom ote key serv ices at nati onal events Californ ia a nd st ill has a strong base of Motorsports Museum ,an on-track element a nd tha t's a big reason th ey're so deeply customers th ere. no w counts more tha n called Safety Safariand a ser iessponsorship entrenched with us." 13 milli on members across 20 sta tes. That acco unts for nea rly 30 percent of al l the of th e NHRA Street Legal division . This This latest renewal willtaketheAuto Club's latest renewal rolls all of these agreements AAA member s nati onally. relationship with the NHRAto 21years and Most of those members joined AAA for into a single five-year contract. That doesn't the Auto Club's CEO, Tom McKernan, has include a team sponsorshipof driver Robert beenaroundforallof them.ln fact,theNHRA the roadsid e assistance, McKernan sa id, Hight at ,John Force Racin g for about $3 but many of them don't know about othe r has the ultimate "in" with Auto Club because million more. McKernan's daughter races dragsters as a serv ices, such as auto an d home insurance, That combination of deals puts Auto Club hobby. a nd travel. in a class with the most prolific sponsors in Supporting the NHRA, whose core mis''After roadside ass istance, which everybody knows about, it kin d of falls off from the sport, including Coca-Cola (Full Throtsion has been to provide a safeenvironment tle), Lucas Oil and O'Reilly Auto Parts. for hot roddin g, is a busin ess decision that's there,"McKernan said. "This is an excellent "This is a big win for us and for the sport ," quite personal for McKernan, a 43-year vetplatfor m for us to bu ild more aware ness for th ose other serv ices. We get information said NHRAPresident Tom Compton. "This eran with the Aut o Club. is a very significan t relationshipfor us.and from people at our displays and we find that "This is a way for us to always keep our it's also a long-ter m deal. There 's a lot of we're ableto sellquit ea bit of business from brand in front of people," McKernan said. equity built into the Aut o Clu b name and "Our tag line is that 'We're always with you' that. ... We've found the demo of NHRAfans to be very good, in terms of education level, safety is certainly some th ing th at aligns and keeping our brand in front of people us both . Th ey've also found th at beyond income levels and just th eir sens itiv ity to is a reinforcement of that" the emphas is on safety, th ey've been able Auto Clu b, which sta rted in Southern all things a utomotive." ~ i HBO Sports, NFL Films to co-produce project BY JO DURAND HN STAFF WRITER HBOSports and NFL Films will co-produce a documentary on legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, marking the first time HBO has entered into a full 50-50coproduction with one of the leagues. HBOwillpremiere the still-to-be-named documenta ry in December. The prem ium cable network has had cooperation from th e major U.S. sports leagues to produce documentar ies. For exa mple, HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg pointed to the NBA, which opened its ar chives for the "Magic & Bird: ACourts hip of Rivals" documentary that pr emier ed last month . But this marks the biggest co-production undertaken by th e HBO Sport s division. "It's a first for us," Gree nburg sa id. "Some leagues a re resist ant to go into a pure co-production. With us and NFL Films, we ca n't wait to work togeth er. [NFL Films Presiden t] Steve Sabol and I have known each oth er for 33 years . It took about five secondsfor me to convince him to do th is," Th e document ary is in production, int erviewing several re tired NFL players who played for Lombardi, like Frank Gifford, Bart Starrand Jer ry Kramer.Pro- HBO's Ross Greenburg is working on a documentary about Vince Lombardi. ducers also have interviewed Lombardi's brother and childre n. Greenburg said th e docum enta ry will have no connection to the planned feature film from ESPN Films. Robert DeNiro has agreed to sta r as the coach. But the movie does not have a director or a script as of yet. Greenburg suggested that h isdocumentary could help sha pe the movie scrip t. "This film could be a wonderful blueprint for them ." The Lombardi story is also headed to Broad way, as for mer Anh euser-Busch Street & Smith's SportsBus iness.JOURNAL marketing executive Tony Ponturo and Broadway prod ucer Fran Kirmser will produce a play about th e former coach. "Lomba rdi" should open in New York City next year. HBOalso has picked a date for its next doc umen ta ry, "Bro ad Street Bullies," which will premiere May 4. Th e network already scree ne d it for some of the NHL's top bra ss, including Comm issione r Gary Bettrnan, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and COO J ohn Collins. Bellman alsoscreened the showat a recent gener al man agers ' meetin g. and some of those general man agers screened it for their teams. "This documentary doesn 't have the power of recognition of 'Magic & Bird.:" Gree nburg sai d. "Bu t baby boomers remember the 'Broad Street Bullies.' When they came to town. you had to lock up your childre n." Greenburg said he didn't feel any extra press ure given the success of ESPN's "30 for 30" documen tary ser ies. "ESPNis usin g great filnunakers doing a lot of passion projects," Greenb urg said. "We' re going to keep our eye on the ball and go after su bjects that make dramatic stor ies.Our stories impact people's hearts and minds." I www.s port s bus iness journ al.com After six years of tape delay, fSPYs returning to live BY JOHN DURAND ST WRl EA AFF T ESPN will air its an nual awards show, the ESPYs, live th is year for the first time in seven years. The move comes after a r a tin gs drop that saw the program post its seco nd lowest rating ever last year. Its 1.5 U.S. hou sehold rating was down significantly fro m 2008's 2.3, an d the 1.705 milli on homes that tun ed in marked just the second time in six years that the show at tracted fewer th an 2 million homes. For the last six years, the show has aired fou r days after th e live s how, wh ile w inners have been made public and highlights shown on th e network . ESPN officials said th at th e four-day lag between th e event and t he tel ecast pr oved to be too long. Th is year 's show will be held July 14 in th e Nokia Theat er at L.A. Live. Actor Samuel L. J ackson an d singer J ustin Timberlak e ~~~N have hoste d th e past two ed it ions of the show.A source sai d ESPN is negotiating with a member of the "Sa tu r day Nig h t Live" ca st to ho st this year 's version . Th is yea r, ESPN will use a delay du r ing its telecast, but does not kn ow how long it will be: Typically, ESPN uses a seven-second delay for live even ts such as this. "Ou r taste meter will be the same as it was during the edited telecast," said Maura Man dt, an exec utive producer with ESPN. "There hasn 't been that many times th at we took out sce nes because we didn't wan t it to happ en ." " No t h ing will sign ific a n tly change with th e show," Mandt said. "In today's world, immediacy is so muc h mor e impor ta n t. We'r e not in a 24-hour news cycle a nymore. We're in a 20-m in ut e news cycle." Th e ESPYs lau nched in 1993 as a live event that was held in New Y ork for the fir st seve n years. It eventually moved to Las Vegas, th en Los Ange les . Th e show moved to a tape-delay in 2004 in hopes th at it woul d get more vie wers and allow for more backst a ge moments to be telecast. Th is yea r's edit ion plans to use social networks during th e telecast. ESPN plans to have athle tes and prese nters tweet and post Facebook upda tes durin g the show. Man dt said a live fan vote will be used for one category, though organizer s have not figured out whi ch catego ry yet. MA RCH 29 ·AP RIL 4 .2010 I•

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