Get ready for the revolving door of sponsor names

For decades they were the brand names that fueled the sport, in the process becoming as synonymous with NASCAR as the cars and drivers themselves. In a racing series where change occurs at a furious pace, Craftsman, Busch and Winston were constants, companies that brought recognition, stability and cash. Those three title sponsors, with a combined 71 years of service between them, helped form modern NASCAR. And after next season, the last of them will be gone.

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Within a span of two years, all three of NASCAR's national divisions will experience name changes, an oddity in a sport where the title sponsorships have typically endured through generations. On New Year's Day the Nextel Cup, which replaced the Winston Cup four years ago, will be succeeded by the Sprint Cup because of a merger within the wireless industry. The sport's junior circuit, known for 26 years as the Busch Series, becomes the Nationwide Series. And after 2008 the Craftsman Truck Series, the only name by which that rough-and-tumble tour has ever been known, will be re-branded by a company yet to be determined.

These are not small changes, not in a sport where "Winston Cup" still escapes the lips from time to time, even four years after the cigarette giant got out of the game. Traditionalists, for whom Busch and Craftsman have become embedded in the lexicon, will surely suffer their tongue-tied moments. And the casual sports fans that NASCAR so covets will almost certainly look at the race rundown crawling along the bottom of an ESPN telecast, and think: Which series is that again?

That's because recognition in sports is bred through consistency. The uniforms of the New York Yankees or the Green Bay Packers are instantly recognizable for one simple reason: they don't change. People who don't follow professional hockey recognize the Stanley Cup, because that same silver trophy has been awarded to the NHL champion for 80 years. The same applies to NASCAR, where even the most casual of followers are able to recognize Jeff Gordon's No. 24 car -- slightly tweaked over the years, with rainbow colors giving way to flames -- or the late Dale Earnhardt's menacing, black No. 3. No wonder track promoters hate the special paint schemes that are endemic to big races. It's like the Red Sox trotting out for the World Series in blue jerseys.

Consistency helps build recognition and helps build fans. The converse is something like the PGA Tour's developmental circuit -- which began as the Ben Hogan Tour, before becoming the Nike Tour, before becoming the Buy.com Tour, before becoming the Nationwide Tour -- which has never really caught on, perhaps partly because people wonder what to call it. Somewhere in the middle is NASCAR, an acronym that on its own requires no further definition. But the names of its three national divisions are dependent upon title sponsorship, and subject to change based on market forces the sanctioning body cannot control. And thus susceptible to times like these, when the familiar gives way to the unfamiliar, and it becomes clear that a 32-year deal with Winston or a 26-year relationship with Busch is the exception and not the rule.

NASCAR knows this is a lot of change for its faithful to digest, and prefers to focus on factors within its sphere of influence. "Ultimately, and here's what we found out already with Nextel and what were going to find out with Nationwide, is that the fans are most interested in the racing and the competitors," said NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston. "There has been a lot of change. We're trying to manage change as best as possible. Ultimately, what's important as far as what we can control is the competition, and we think the competition is as good as it's ever been today."

Still, it makes you wonder: Why, given the sometimes unpredictable sponsorship atmosphere NASCAR operates in, have a Winston Cup or a Nextel Cup or a Sprint Cup at all? Why not have something like a William C. France Jr. Cup, which goes to the winner of the Sprint Series or the Coors Light Series or whatever it may be in 2027, as a method of bringing some consistency to a tour that will have a new name for the second time in four years? That's unlikely, because these aren't straight naming rights deals. From a NASCAR perspective, an entity like Sprint/Nextel isn't just a title sponsor, but an active partner that helps market and sell the sport through initiatives like FanView and the Nextel Experience. They're paying for influence as well as exposure.

Craftsman to rebrand

Craftsman doesn't plan on leaving NASCAR despite the company ending its title sponsorship of the Truck Series. The plan is to market the tool maker "bigger and better."

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• Craftsman out after '08

"In our sport, the sponsors aren't just a bystander. They are committed to the sport, they are committed to the fans," Poston said. "Not only are they the title sponsor, they are also part of the year-end points fund. They're instrumental, Sprint in particular, in developing things like FanView, and also in promoting the sport itself, with all these [television] ads they have with Elliott Sadler and Jimmie Johnson. So in this sport, you really have a sponsor that is ingrained in the sport and is part of the fabric and tradition of the sport. So having their name on the trophy is appropriate."

Sometimes, as NASCAR has discovered, change can be for the positive, even when it means the end of a landmark relationship. For all Winston and R.J. Reynolds did for NASCAR -- and they did plenty, from a crack public relations department that helped foster more coverage to cash that helped make the sport a household name -- ties to the cigarette industry were an anchor dragging NASCAR down. It's no coincidence that Winston's association with NASCAR began the year after cigarette ads were banned from television. As recently as 2000, reporters could obtain cartons of cigarettes as easily as they could press releases, and media centers could be as smoky as pool halls.

Nextel brought cleaner air and a more modern edge, one a little more rock and roll and a little less country, without any public health baggage. It could market to children as well as adults. It was a technological company befitting a technological sport, a partner that wasn't banned from advertising on television, a sponsor that after a few early missteps rolled out a series of initiatives that have helped better expose the sport. Surely within offices in Daytona Beach, there's hope that Nationwide can do something similar with what used to be the Busch Series, which has long lived in the shadow of its more successful older brother, and has struggled to carve an identity of its own. And the search is on for a company that can help the Truck Series, where too many teams are saddled with sponsorship issues, find a broader appeal.

But in the meantime there is the tricky matter of the conversion, of a season that will surely see plenty of drivers talking about the "Busch -- err, Nationwide Series" and fans wondering whether Tony Stewart should be referred to as a two-time Winston, Nextel, or Sprint Cup champion. They have some time to get it right; six years remain on the original 10-year contract signed with Sprint/Nextel, and the agreement with Nationwide runs through 2014. Eventually, Sprint and Nationwide may become just as second-nature as Winston and Busch were in their time. But in this day and age, where a drop of a few points in a stock price or an earnings report can cause a drastic shift in marketing strategy, they're unlikely to be around for as long.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer.