There are persistent rumors that Chip Ganassi may be in financial deep water, with his long-time sponsor Target likely announcing by the end of the year it will be ending its association with the race team.
- No more contracts for Ganassi crewmembers
- Target to return as sponsor to Ganassi
- Report: Ganassi to make more job cuts
- BMW Sauber Set to Lose Mobile Phone Sponsor O2
- Hmiel joins Ganassi
It’s about time Target took it multi-million dollar contracts and moved on to a place that will give them a much better return for all that sponsorship money they have poured out with little benefit to them or their stockholders…
Target is selling off its credit card division to raise cash and improve it’s bottom line so this move could be part of that theme…
Personally I don’t think Target will leave the Cup series for Chip (all together) unless they pull off of Chips IRL and Grand-Am teams.
With K-Mart, Sears, Wal-Mart, Costco, etc.. No longer having NASCAR Sponsored Cars, it really makes no sense for Target to essentially “waste” Advertising money in NASCAR, because Target (like those other stores I mentioned) really don’t need to Advertise themselves at all (talking about advertising the store, not their sales).
But then you run into the whole Need/Need/Want, Risk/Risk/Reward argument.
Does Taget Need to be in NASCAR? No
Does Target Need to spend a ton of money in NASCAR to get its brand out? Probaly not
Do fans Want to support NASCAR car sponsors more then non- sponsors? Yes.
Does Target want to Risk the amount of money it has involved in NASCAR, without any guarantee it’ll get it back in sales? Probably Not.
Does Target want to Risk being associated with a bad team, possibly drawing conclusions that their service is bad also? No
Does Target See the Reward of being the only Major American Retailer in Americans top Sport, with Millions of potential customers seeing their logos? Only an Idiot would not want that.
The Question is Does the Reward outweigh the Risks, and does the want outweigh the Needs?
And The Other thing to think about is Does Target WANT to Strain its relationship with Chips other teams, Does Chip Need them as a sponsor, Does Target See the Reward in Keeping a long-term relationship, and does Chip see the Risk that Losing a Cup Sponsor could have on the rest of his racing teams?
I also wonder what would happen with his other teams if they did leave his Cup rides… Seems like sponsorship in the other series doesn’t get you near the visibility of the Cup series, so it wouldn’t totally surprise me to see them just cut back to Cup sponsorship.
I certainly can’t blame them for wanting to either get out completely or switch to a winning team. Maybe Gibbs will throw a 4th car in the mix next year and they can get in there? Maybe they could be a full-time sponsor for Biffle? There’s plenty of teams out there that have a much better reputation as a winner than Ganassi, so they have plenty of options. Heck, even the RYR cars would be an option!
I would think Target and Chip have had Many talks on that very subject and as far as his other “teams” I doubt he would lose them from Target at this time. That said You must realize Target has stockholders to answer to and backing a sub par team in NASCAR to get minimal exposure does not translate into revenue in the stockholders eyes.
Bottom line is Ganassi Racing Inc. needs Target a hell of a lot more that Target needs him no matter how you massage the appearance of there symbiotic relationship…
remmeber, in cup, it’s ganassi racing. In Grand am and IRL, it’s TARGET chip ganassi racing. Target owns half of those teams.
uh oh.
Target has denied the story.
steve wrote:
Chip and Felix own it all, the Target thing is like Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, its a Ferrari owned team, but Marlboro owns all the advertising space on the car, and then sells it out to other sponsors.
Also a lot of Openwheel/Road Racing teams carry a naming tradition like that where the main sponsor gets plugged into the official team name.