Monster Energy still unsure about NASCAR Cup Series sponsorship beyond 2018
By Nick Tylwalk
NASCAR has to be hoping its current top series title sponsor will eventually renew its deal, but it’s taking a long time for it to happen.
When drivers fire up their engines for the Daytona 500 in a few weeks, they will be competing in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. The same will be true when one of them accepts a trophy as series champion at Homestead this fall. Whether it remains that way beyond that is still very much up in the air.
NASCAR had hoped that Monster Energy, which originally agreed to replace Sprint as title sponsor, would want to stick around for more than its initial two-year deal. A decision was supposed to come by December 2017, but Monster asked for more time and was granted an extension last September.
That time has reportedly come and gone, though not without NASCAR letting the company have even more time to decide if it wanted to commit to the 2019 and 2020 seasons. And according to ESPN’s Bob Pockrass, it still doesn’t appear any choice has been made on that front.
"Monster Energy has not decided whether to extend its sponsorship of the NASCAR Cup Series for 2019-20. At a business update for investors Thursday, Monster Beverage Chairman Rodney Sacks said: “We have gotten a lot more visibility, a lot more recognition for the brand through the NASCAR sponsorship. It’s very expansive, it’s on TV, it’s appearing on talk shows. We look at the metrics that the NASCAR folk give us and it certainly does seem to have been enhanced. Now the degree is to what degree? That we don’t know. “"
With every passing day, NASCAR is essentially hoping even more that Monster Energy would say. Series title sponsorship has a lot of moving parts and takes time to put together, and ideally, NASCAR would already be out courting replacements if it knew one would be needed for 2019.
Next: Jamie McMurray has no plans to retire from NASCAR any time soon
That means the organization could be scrambling if Monster Energy decides it wants out at the end of this year. It’s not an ideal situation by any means, so the hope has to be that a renewal can be reached — and everyone involved will undoubtedly breathe easier if that happens pretty darn soon.