When Dogecoin and the “NASCAR on Reddit” community announced their intention to crowdfund a sponsorship for a NASCAR team, some in the sport, myself included, thought it would never happen.
Crowdfunding in NASCAR has happened before, such as America’s Racing Team, a team that was actually designed to be owned by racing fans. This was a complete failure by all accounts, never even getting a car onto the race track. The cheapest package one could buy, a $300 “partnership,” wouldn’t even cover the cost of a set of tires in the Sprint Cup series. The biggest package they offered, a $2000 “76 Pit Crew Partnership,” would go about as far in Sprint Cup as a Dodge engine would. It has been estimated that it costs about $10 million to run a Sprint Cup team full-time. This means they would have needed, by my calculations, 5,000 people to basically throw away $2000 in order to get a car on the track every year the team isn’t sponsored. And of course this isn’t counting expenses such as haulers and renting a garage to put the cars in.
But unlike ART, Dogecoin has no intention of starting a team or sponsoring somebody for a full season. Rather, they took a safe risk with one of the cheapest teams in Sprint Cup (Not a dig, but I really doubt the Phil Parsons 98 car was/is as in-demand as the Dale Earnhardt Jr. 88 car), on a track where anybody can make the race or even win it.
Dogecoin and “NASCAR on Reddit” raised $55,000 to become a partner sponsor for the No. 98 of Josh Wise and earn the right to put a Shiba Inu and such statements as “wow” and “much drafting” on the car for one race at Talladega. Not only did Wise make the race but he performed exceptionally well, running near the front often and getting a lot of nationally broadcasted television time. As a thank-you, Phil Parsons, the team owner, gave Dogecoin the opportunity, free of charge, to be a part of the All-Star race weekend which includes the Showdown, and if the community votes Wise in, the actual All-Star race. When NASCAR announced the top 10 vote- getters as of Monday, many were shocked to find Wise among the 10. Some believe that Wise might be able to sneak past popular stars Danica Patrick and Clint Bowyer to win the fan vote.
This sponsorship might just revolutionize how many of the smaller teams will approach sponsorship with crowdfunding of cars now becoming an actual possibility. Obviously I doubt they would be able to find enough crowdfunding to sponsor a car for an entire season (Dogecoin would need to raise around 2 million dollars for an entire season), but it still leads to more fan interaction and more attention for smaller teams. Smaller teams are an important part of NASCAR; there are about 15 Sprint Cup cars that are not really affiliated with a big team. If we don’t support them and don’t give them attention, we may end up with four teams basically controlling the sport- Roush/Penske, Hendrick, Childress, and Toyota Racing Development. That’s bad for business and bad for competition.
