Sprint to supplant Nextel Cup as title sponsor

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Though Saturday's announcement came as nosurprise, it's now official: NASCAR's Nextel Cup Series has changedits name to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, effective next Jan. 1.

The timing of the name change announcement coincides with thelaunch of a new advertising campaign that will mark the aggressivepromotion of the Sprint brand and the phase-out of the Nextel name.

Sprint will supplant Nextel in all aspects of the titlesponsorship, including the All-Star race in May.

The name change results from Sprint's ascendance as the dominantbrand after Sprint's acquisition of Nextel for $35 billion in 2005led to the formation of Sprint Nextel Corp., one of the largesttelecommunications companies in the world.

NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France joined with Sprint's TimKelly (chief marketing officer), Tom Murphy (vice president ofexperiential marketing) and Dean Kessel (director of NASCAR NextelCup Series marketing) in the media center at Daytona InternationalSpeedway for the announcement and unveiling of the new series logo.

"When we originally entered into the first agreement with Nextel,we actually and they actually contemplated the possibility that thismight happen," France said.

"Obviously, they didn't know at that point about being acquired bySprint, or the merger, but what they did know was they were in a fast-moving industry in telecom, and they wanted to get bigger."

"The question for us is, while it's never easy to change the nameof your primary series, you most important series ... but in talkingto the Sprint group for some time now, it's very obvious to us thattheir focus, and rightly so, will be against the Sprint brand."

France acknowledged the possibility of confusion between theSprint Cup Series and open-wheeled sprint cars had entered thediscussions between NASCAR and the title sponsor but were not a majorconcern.

"It's obviously something we talked about, but we're verycomfortable with it," France said. "The branding that will be done inthis series and all the effort Sprint has made on its own will helpmitigate any kind of confusion."

France also sees an important contractual distinction between thechange from Nextel to Sprint and the re-branding of Cingular Wirelessto AT&T on Jeff Burton's No. 31 Chevrolet, a dispute that led tolitigation involving NASCAR, AT&T and Sprint Nextel.

AT&T won a preliminary injunction against NASCAR that allowed theplacement of the AT&T logos on the Cingular car, but that ruling iscurrently in appeal, and NASCAR has filed a $100-million counter suitagainst AT&T, which is pending.

"The difference is that we have a contract that allows them to doit, and we permitted it," France said of the title sponsorshipagreement with Sprint Nextel. "They (AT&T) seized on really atechnicality, and we'll have to see if the court systems will see itour way as we go down the road. We think they're very separateissues, and we're comfortable with that."

Kelly echoed France's perspective.

"As Brian said, we had the contractual right to make the change,and we had to move forward with our business and not be distracted bythings that were happening in the courts," Kelly said. "It was theright thing to do for Sprint and for NASCAR to make this change atthis point. That's why we made it now."