NASCAR’s 2008 season has come to a close, and few people seem certain the sport will look the same next year as it did this year. Garage talk is dominated by merger-and-acquisition rumors as teams fight for the right short-term and long-term strategies to stay afloat. Marketing budgets are being scrutinized so sponsors can adapt to the changing economy. Questions about car counts and attendance loom over a sport that has been riding a wave of prosperity. Those and other topics were fair game when NASCAR stakeholders from throughout the industry gathered recently in SportsBusiness Journal’s headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. Here are the highlights from that roundtable discussion that featured: – Paul Brooks, president, NASCAR Media Group – Michael Burch, VP, business development, Speedway Motorsports Inc. – Mark Coughlin, executive VP, Octagon Racing – Mark Dyer, CEO, Motorsports Authentics – Michael Hargrave, senior VP, motorsports executive, Bank of America – Steve Lauletta, president, Chip Ganassi Racing – Hunter Nickell, president, SPEED – Julie Sobieski, VP of programming and acquisitions, ESPN – Michael Waltrip, owner/driver, Michael Waltrip Racing – Trip Wheeler, president, The Wheeler Group, and independent contractor, Velocity some of the questions include: How much does the economy dominate your conversations these days? How did the talks between ESPN and SPEED start? The theme of “Returning to the Roots” came out of that. How has that message gone over? What is the future for teams and is consolidation coming? Is there going to be fallout from all of these new team alliances and driver changes? See the few article at NASCAR.com.(11-20-2008)
