Canadian Sponsorship, Where is it?

[icemachine]

I find it pathetic that Rocketsports is the only team to have sponorship with a Canadian company, Saputo. We have three races in Canada, two of them sponsored by Molson's which I think ought to have a much larger profile with Champcars now they have merged with Coors.

I work for one of the Magna company's, and can't understand why we are not at all involved with autoracing. I work in transmission development, and I think were missing out on a lot of possibilities. Unfortunately Mr. Stronach prefers horse racing, but at a corporate level I think it would make sense for Magna to be involved.

The 4 big Canadian banks have profits in the billions every year, yet do no more than put up temporary signage along Lakeshore Drive.

I just wish that the three Amigos would pressure some Canadian companies to provide real support for the races we get.

[/rant]

[Snrub]

I can't figure out the lack of Canadian sponsorship either. Surely if no one is getting involved, the exposure per dollar cost must drop (supply and demand), thus making it more attractive for companies like the banks. Banks seem like a good fit because they can wine and dine their big clients and market to Joe Public. For a company with a stodgy reputation, I can think of little better than sponsoring PT. Think about it, you get the unusual combination of a Canadian "rebel-bad boy," but in a classy, high profile package. Also, the banks are pushing for gov't approval for mergers again. A little wink-wink-nod-nod sponsorship of Tag and or the Montreal race to help with the promotion of "culture" and "national unity" in Quebec couldn't hurt.

I'm not sure that more contribution can be expected of Molson, they're doing a lot already. I'd rather they just fixed the horrible TV problem.

Accross Canada in 2004 the insurance industry pulled in a 20.4% ROE! Loan sharks aren't that profitable! I realize they have a defacto "don't rock the boat" colusion agreement like the oil companies, etc. but one would again think that aligning auto insurance with something "sexy" would be appealing to them. It would also say "look, we're not crooks, when PT wrecks his car, we open our wallet."

Magna doesn't sell to the public, so the only benifit is the "wine and dine" aspect of bringing clients to the races. $4M or something like that for primary sponsorship doesn't necessarly seem like a good deal. I'm sure Ford execs don't need to have the "free" CC treatment when they're already paying into CC.

[icemachine]

The benefit I see for Magna is more on the technical side, as I'm sure it must be for Johnson Controls. Also Magna does buy into corporate stuff to woo potential customers. I know they have a platinum lounge at the ACC for example.

[camcartfan]

icemachine, are you in a position to suggest a CC car sponsorship to your execs? I agree that Canadian fans are huge supporters of CC, therefore Canadian companies should look at this series as a viable sponsorship opportunity. It seems like common sense.

[macdaddy]

But, common-sense isn't as common as we'd like to think.

[Kicking-back]

There are ways to analyse what the return on investment is from a sponsorship deal.

Obviously those companies have found ChampCar at the moment doesn't offer that.

[indycool]

There's no "pressuring" involved in sponsorship negotiations because the seller has no leverage. A Canadian company is not going to go bankrupt if they don't sponsor a Champ Car. One sad part about it is that Canadian companies have not seemed to look at CCWS as an alternative to marketing around the NHL, which was "iced" for the season. On another thread here, macdaddy bemoans TV in Canada for the series. That may play a part. Another might be the lawsuit between Forsythe and Player's, which might tend to turn Canadian companies "off" to involvement at the "corporate culture" level. Another element might be the Canadian cigarette laws.....Player's was a mainstay in supporting motorsports in Canada even before Molson became involved with CART. For motorsports overall, that's a lot of cash out the window.

[BootsOntheSide]

Considering the state US open-wheel racing is in, its hardly surprising that so few companies are involved in sponsorship. Other than the long-term Target and Marlboro deals, and deals which are motivated by a boardroom love of racing or a company being in a racing-specific market, there isn't much out there. In terms of allure to fans and marketing return, motor racing simply isn't great at the moment compared to sponsoring a team in another sport.

[Snrub]

Given the TV ratings for Canadian events and race attendance, putting money on a car MUST be worth something to someone.

[macdaddy]

Wasn't there a NASCAR team sponsored by the US Army?

Perhaps we can get a ChampCar sponsored by the Canadian military?

[/tongue-in-cheek]

It would be great if Canadian Tire could step into the picture. Sponsor a team and Canadian driver like they used to do in Atlantics, and MasterCraft could become the "official tool" as well.

[Roninho]

Yep, it is worth something. But the problem of fast cars is that they cost way more than those 100k viewers are worth for a sponsor. So either costs should lower dramatically or exposure needs to go up.

[macdaddy]

The three Canadian events get tremendous media exposure though. Especially the Canadian drivers. And the per-capita Neilson Ratings are undoubtedly much higher in Canada than they are in the US.

[Liz]

We don't figure into the Neilson Ratings, or they'd be higher than they are.

Edmonton is a city with a lot of business -- maybe they will come up with some sponsors. But I do think most of the businesses in Canada that are not in receivership or Chapter 11 are really owned by Americans.

I'd like to see Tim Horton's get involved but I think Wendy's owns them now. They'd be a good fit.

[icemachine]

Camcart, I'm still pretty much the junior engineer on the team. I've proposed to my group director that racing is a venue we should look at for developing new ideas that we could take to the market. I'm planning on putting together a presentation for my group about possible race engineered benefits that would come from sponsorship, but right now I'm working close to 60 hours a week and have no energy to add more to my plate.

[paul-collins]

Just out of curiosity, is ACEMCO in the same business as Magna? On the surface it would seem so.

Oh, and Magna did sponsor a Multimatic-run Lola B2K/40 back in 1999 in the first year of the ALMS. I'm not sure if they were on the car when it won its class at Le Mans, though. I've got pictures of the car in the paddock at Mosport. That was a long time ago...

[Snrub]

I was thinking about this issue some more and Indycool makes an interesting point regarding the lack of a NHL season. Last week a statistic came out that showed Canadian beer consumption was WAY down because of the lack of the NHL. This likely means that Labatts, Molson, etc. are probably going to have a disappointing 2005 performance. The only way to try to correct that would be to increase their promotion. Labatts (interbrew) has let Molson have near exclusive advertising relating to motorsports. If Labatts wants to improve market share and improve their year 2005, they're going to need to take share from Molson and Molson might up their current marketing plans. Autoracing is virtually the only big sports event in Canada until next fall. All of the larger microbreweries will also need to improve and already target a more afluent customer. The microbreweries have also taken a lot out of the big beer companies and might try to hurt Molson further. I don't think any of this advertising will result in car sponsorship, but it could result in track ads, TV ads, etc. In the end it all helps the series.

[macdaddy]

Fascinating posts. Sure got me thinking.

[icemachine]

Paul, ACEMCO seems to be like the Magna division, Cosma, Magna's metal forming division. Cosma does stamping, roll forming and hydro forming. Tesma, the division I work at does Engine, Transmission and Fuel Train systems. I work in the Transmission lead engineering group. Magna has other companies and they do just about all aspects of vehicle engineering and assembly, including full vehicle assembly through MagnaSteyr. I think worldwide Magna is close to 100K employees.

[camcartfan]

Originally Posted by icemachine

Camcart, I'm still pretty much the junior engineer on the team. I've proposed to my group director that racing is a venue we should look at for developing new ideas that we could take to the market. I'm planning on putting together a presentation for my group about possible race engineered benefits that would come from sponsorship, but right now I'm working close to 60 hours a week and have no energy to add more to my plate.

Thanks ice.

[kmchow]

Originally Posted by macdaddy

Wasn't there a NASCAR team sponsored by the US Army?

Perhaps we can get a ChampCar sponsored by the Canadian military?

The Canadian Forces already sponsoring a Cascar team.

It would be great if Canadian Tire could step into the picture. Sponsor a team and Canadian driver like they used to do in Atlantics, and MasterCraft could become the "official tool" as well.

They're already sponsoring a Cascar team. Heck, Tim Hortons sponsors a Cascar team as well if I recall correctly.

It seems Canadian companies are more active in Cascar than open wheel racing. It's no wonder Nascar has an option to buy/expand Cascar!

[camcartfan]

Do you think Molson or Labatt's would respond and seriously consider a car sponsorship if we all emailed them? Just a thought....

[camcartfan]

Here is the link to the Molson "Contact Us" mask if you are interested:
http://www.molson.com/companyinforma...tact/index.php

[macdaddy]

To the best of my knowledge, Canadian law prohibits Molson from sponsoring both an event and a team. It's one, or the other.

[macdaddy]

No - wait - I had that wrong.

I think that breweries are forbidden from sponsoring teams altogether.

I emailed Molson back in November 2003 and asked them if legislation prevented them from sponsoring a team. And I inquired as to why there used to be a Molson car in the early 90's (Danny Sullivan), if this was indeed the case.

Reply from Molson:

Thank you for your interest in Molson. It is true that we do not sponsor teams or individuals, only events. It is different in the US, so it would have been possible for an individual or team to be sponsored there in the past.

[macdaddy]

Carpentier mentioned this in an interview as well... But I've been unable to find it so far...