In many minds, it was viewed as another groundbreaking moment for a sport with increasing television ratings and a national profile on the rise. When Bruton Smith announced 11 years ago that his flagship, Charlotte-area speedway had struck a naming-rights agreement with the Lowe's home improvement chain, some saw it as the beginning of a trend.

"I recall that rather well, and there was the feeling of, this is a breakthrough, a high-water mark for the sport in another area. And that was the time when it was nearing its apex," said Charlotte-based sports marketing consultant Max Muhleman. "Ratings were up, and now this comes along. Charlotte was an awfully good market for racing, but it wasn't the biggest one. There was a feeling that this was going to be a wave that would sweep across the ocean of the sport."

“

If I were managing a speedway today, I would not sell the naming rights to the speedway. ... I think it hurts you too much in marketing and advertising, particularly today when you're struggling to sell tickets in this economy.

”

-- HUMPY WHEELER

And yet, it wasn't. More than a decade after Smith's announcement, only two other Sprint Cup facilities -- Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., and Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. -- have corporate naming-rights agreements. Lowe's, which struck its deal with then-Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1999 during a period of rapid national expansion for both the home-improvement company and NASCAR, announced earlier this year that the sponsorship would not be continued after the 2009 season. The Concord, N.C., track, which is expected to revert back to its old name next year, held its final NASCAR race weekend under the Lowe's moniker last weekend.

The lingering effects of the current economic recession, which has had a devastating impact on sponsorship in NASCAR, would seem to preclude any new naming-rights agreements from being struck in the near future. But even in good economic times, when the sport was enjoying unprecedented popularity, attendance and television ratings, corporate names for race tracks were a rarity. This despite the fact that in other sports, facility naming-rights deals are the rule rather than the exception. In the NFL, 15 of 31 stadiums are named after corporations. In Major League Baseball, it will be 19 of 30 when the Minnesota Twins move into their new ballpark next year. In the NBA, 23 of 29 arenas have naming-rights agreements.

From Safeco Field to Miller Park to Gillette Stadium to the United Center, corporate naming rights have become entrenched in American sports culture, to the point where fans rarely even seem bothered by them anymore. So why did this trend never catch on in NASCAR, seen by many as a paragon of sports marketing? It doesn't help that, compared to other sports facilities, that race tracks are used rather infrequently. And then there are the bevy of other marketing opportunities -- first and foremost cars and drivers -- available elsewhere within the sport.

"It might be the fact that historically, NASCAR has been such a strong marketing vehicle, that it overshadows the benefits of naming rights," said David Carter, principal of the Sports Business Group, and an assistant professor at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. "What I mean by that is, if you look at these tracks around the country, clearly the number of events they have might not be as high in number or perhaps in caliber as you would see with sports arenas around the country that have multiple tenants and a lot of dates. You take a look at that, and it gives you a whole different dynamic if you're a sports marketer. You have these facilities that might not be used as much as others."

Even high-profile tracks like Daytona and Indianapolis are used relatively infrequently compared to arenas in other sports. Although tracks often fill their annual schedules with activities like charity events, car shows, commercial shoots, tests and ride-alongs, potential naming-rights partners are looking for the kind of major events that tracks typically host only two or three times a year.

"A track has basically at most two major events, the [NASCAR] races," said Muhleman, who runs Private Sports Consulting. "You look at football, the NFL at least has 10 major events, eight regular season and two preseason games that are generally televised, generally nationally covered, and in some cases highly covered. They have a wider footprint to spread the naming rights benefit over. Baseball of course is off the charts with 81 home games, and to a lesser extent so are areas with basketball and hockey. Race tracks are at a fundamental disadvantage in terms of exposure compared to those other sports. Your budget is for 12 fiscal months and your benefits are for two or three. That's a metric you have to contend with."

Mike Burch, vice president for development at Speedway Motorsports Inc., the parent company of Lowe's Motor Speedway, believes the relative youth of stadiums and arenas in other sports also plays a role.

"I think if you look at it, a lot of this as been driven by new facilities," he said. "Almost all the facilities that have naming-rights partnerships are facilities that are being newly-built. You look across the motorsports landscape, and it tends to be a matter of improving existing facilities rather than flat-out building new race tracks. That's one thing that jumps out at me that drives naming-rights opportunities."

There's also plenty of competition within the sport. Companies that want to get involved in NASCAR have a myriad of options, ranging from agreements with the sanctioning body, to personal deals with drivers, to a range of sponsorship alternatives with race cars. To a certain degree, it's more cost-effective to pay for 38 hits a year on a race car than one or two with a race track. When Lowe's struck its deal with the Charlotte track, the company backed a car driven by Mike Skinner, who never won a race on NASCAR's premier level. Is it a coincidence that Lowe's is stepping away at a time when it backs a car driven by three-time series champion Jimmie Johnson?

"You have far more unique ways to activate around NASCAR if you're a marketing partner than you do if you're a marketing partner of a sports team," Carter said. "You can get involved with the league, in terms of NASCAR, you can get involved with the individual teams, and obviously sponsorship is vital to the drivers themselves. So if I'm a sponsor, I might be able to activate more creatively with NASCAR as a backdrop given the different prongs that it offers, than aligning my corporate name to a facility. It's the very strength of NASCAR and its drivers that make facilities relatively less attractive."

Humpy Wheeler, the former president and general manager of Lowe's Motor Speedway and SMI, points to another reason -- geography. Tracks, he argues, typically draw from a much larger swath of the country, as opposed to stadiums and arenas that usually attract fans from the same city. And a naming-rights deal can make it difficult for people hundreds of miles away to know what facility you're talking about.

"Take California, for instance. Auto Club [Speedway], now who knows where that is? Most people in the industry say, 'I'm going to California.' Most people in the state say, 'I'm going to Fontana.' Because that's where everybody knows it is," said Wheeler, who now runs the consulting firm The Wheeler Co.

"There are a lot of problems with naming rights. No. 1, your souvenir sales are not going to be what they'd be with the geographic name, because people would rather buy a Charlotte Motor Speedway T-shirt than a Lowe's Motor Speedway T-shirt. It's not that they don't like Lowe's, it's the geographic name and location. They want to say they've been there. Then, speedway races are sold over much bigger geographic areas than say, football games. Fifty percent of the tickets to the [Cola-Cola] 600 are sold from more than 200 miles away, a lot of them to people in Canada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. So the farther you get from the place, the more confusing the name becomes. If you're trying to convert new fans in Pennsylvania and say 'Lowe's' rather than 'Charlotte,' well, people in Pennsylvania don't know where Lowe's is. So there are some negatives to naming rights."

According to Burch, SMI doesn't necessarily shop its facilities to potential naming-rights suitors, which often happens in other sports. Instead, the idea may come up as the speedway company and a potential sponsor negotiate a package that best suits the company involved.

"At some level, when somebody starts talking about, we're looking to build awareness and we're looking to reach people, at some point you think, well, is there an opportunity for this to be a naming-rights situation? So it's always a tool you have in your bag, like a race entitlement or a trackside sign," Burch said.

"In today's world, first and foremost, it has to be, does this meet the needs of the company involved? You can't go in there with a predetermined agenda of, 'This is what I want to sell to somebody,' or, 'I have to sell them on it.' You can do that, but you're not very likely to be talking about a renewal at the end of that period."

Wheeler, who ran the Charlotte track for more than 30 years, said the Lowe's deal was brokered by an agency out of New Jersey. Looking back on it now, it seems clear that the veteran promoter had some reservations.

"I didn't then and still don't now look upon it as groundbreaking," he said. "Yeah, it was the first track to have the name sold. But was it the right thing to do, and did it do what it wanted to do? Yeah, Lowe's is a great company. But would we have been better off making another deal with Lowe's, like having them sponsor a race? I don't know if we'd be able to answer that question. You can say Lowe's got a great deal out of that, but how much did the speedway lose in identity? Did people in Ontario know where Lowe's is?"

One thing is certain -- Wheeler wouldn't do such a thing today.

"If I were managing a speedway today, I would not sell the naming rights to the speedway," he said. "I would sell the naming rights to the media center, but I would not sell the naming rights to the speedway. One thing, it means too much to the community. And I think it hurts you too much in marketing and advertising, particularly today when you're struggling to sell tickets in this economy."

As for the Lowe's deal, Burch believes it ultimately benefited both parties. "I think absolutely," he said. "You look at the growth of both sides, what Lowe's did during that period of time, their growth into a national company. You look at the growth of Speedway Motorsports and the things we were able to do here at Lowe's Motor Speedway to improve the fan experience. I think both sides have benefited from it, and I think both sides will continue to."