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.

Q: That's a growing business these days and one that Fenway Sports Group is now involved in, too, isn't it?

Corcoran: Fenway Sports Group actually represents Boston College here on our backyard. That's been a great win-win relationship with them. ... We continue to look for ways to grow in that area. Who knows what the next blue-chip property will be?

Q: Where exactly do all the tentacles of Fenway Sports Group go?

Corcoran: John Henry and Tom Werner and the rest of the partners bought the Red Sox back in 2002. We've had tremendous growth and success, obviously not measured merely by championships but also as the Red Sox Nation has grown so has the sponsor base and the profitability of the organization -- and our ability to maintain the integrity of Fenway Park. As a New Englander, that's probably been as important to me as anything; the fact that the Red Sox will probably continue to play at Fenway Park for the next 40 to 50 years is a dream come true. If you turn the clock back, back in the late 1990s, the talk was about a new stadium and the ability to relocate Fenway Park over to the coast.

Really, kudos to John Henry and Tom and the rest of the partners to taking the organization where they have. That has grown into Fenway Sports Group, now diversifying the business and kind of leveraging the equity and popularity of the Red Sox -- and now actually having our hands involved in many ends of the sports business. As we mentioned, Boston College, we also have the Deustche Bank Championship [golf tournament] in Boston, where we are the sponsorship and the event management agency of record for that. We represent a small list of both LPGA and PGA golfers as a part of that relationship. This past year we were the agency of record working hand-in-hand with the global sports property known as the Volvo Ocean Race ... On the heels of a lot of the success here in New England, we like to say we're not just a bunch of chowderheads. We've actually grown the business into more of a North American property representation business. And the first feather in our cap was through the investment that John made in Roush Fenway Racing, going back just two and a half years ago. I think that really legitimized FSG as more of a U.S. company and not just a New England company.

Q: Anything else you guys are getting into?

Corcoran: We also now do all of the sponsorship, marketing and sales for the Professional Bull Riders -- the PBR. We're very excited about that relationship. ... After Roush Fenway and Boston College and some of the other things we have done, we felt the PBR was the next logical step for us. It's a tremendous growth property. We also think there is a lot of overlap in fan affinity and fan loyalty between NASCAR and PBR.

Q: It would be interesting to see if you could get Jack Roush on a bull. What do you think the odds are of that happening?

Corcoran: You know, we don't want Jack on the bull. We already are fearful enough of his adventures in the sky. And God bless, he's still with us. But his passion for aviation obviously is second to none.

One of our rising stars at Roush Fenway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., was able to fulfill one of his dreams through our relationship with PBR. He actually partnered with J.B. Mauney, one of the PBR stars, where they got together a little over a month ago -- and Ricky had opportunity to ride the bull, and J.B. had the opportunity to get behind the wheel of a stock car.

Q: Wow. How did that go?

Corcoran: It went well. Or I guess I should say it went as well as could be expected. I don't think anyone got hurt.

Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.