1on1: Fenway Sports Group's eye for NASCAR

What do professional bull riders have in common with Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle?

They're all represented by the same company -- Fenway Sports Group, of which Roush Fenway Racing and the PBR (the bull riders, not the beer) are both a part.

Brian Corcoran, a former managing director of corporate marketing for NASCAR, now oversees the day-to-day operations for FSG's NASCAR division, which also includes Yates Racing, as well as heading up FSG's Business Development division. His job, in a nutshell, is to identify and develop new sponsors and other revenue opportunities for FSG.

He recently spoke about mixing PBR with high-speed stock-car racing, and about how now that he's out of his NASCAR office in New York he can openly admit, as a Red Sox fan, that he really, really hates Yankees fans.

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Q: Tell us a little about your background.

Corcoran: Sure. I'm kind of reuniting with my roots here. I was born and raised in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. As we like to call it up here in New England, Ricky Craven Country. I actually enjoyed a lot of short-track racing as a kid up at Beech Ridge [Motor] Speedway. And I've kind of evolved into obviously a career now in motorsports over the last seven years [six and a half in his old job with NASCAR]. I actually ran track in college, so I took a jet plane down to Richmond, Ky., where I got my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Eastern Kentucky University.

Q: Did you gain some hands-on experience there as well?

Corcoran: I actually worked in the athletic department there for two years while I got my master's degree. I worked under Roy Kidd, who was the football coach back in the day for the Colonels.

Q: That's the legendary Roy Kidd, one of the winningest college football coaches in history, right?

Corcoran: Exactly. I was blessed to be in his good company, and that kind of led into my career in sports. I thought I wanted to be a sports doctor and follow in the path of the famous Dr. [James] Andrews. I thought I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon in the sports field.

Well, I met Coach Kidd through my involvement in student government and running track and all that good stuff. He encouraged me that perhaps a career on the other side of sports in business and marketing -- perhaps even sports administration -- might be a more fruitful and more passionate way for me to get involved in the industry. So one thing led to another and actually his son, Marc Kidd, was probably the guy who was most influential in my career. Marc was the president at Host Communications, and that was another stop along the way. After the college thing, I actually worked at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, worked for Host Communications launching a new business division for them. It's now IMG College, which is a major rights holder with the SEC and Big 12 and NCAA, and probably 15 to 20 blue-chip college properties such as Texas and Kentucky and Ohio State. (Continued)