Company still wants NASCAR driver as spokeswoman
GoDaddy will not renew its primary sponsorship with the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 10 Chevrolet driven by Danica Patrick, according to a release on Wednesday. But the company revealed it is negotiating to keep Patrick as a GoDaddy spokeswoman under a personal services agreement.
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“We love Danica and all she does to empower and inspire people, especially women, which is why we are working to keep her in the GoDaddy family,” said GoDaddy Chief Marketing Officer Phil Bienert in the release. “We have the utmost respect for Stewart-Haas Racing, and they’ve been phenomenal partners. … The fact Danica is having a record-setting season makes it tough to leave this motorsports sponsorship, without a doubt.”
In nine NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races this season, Patrick has two top-10 finishes, including a seventh-place finish at Martinsville. With her ninth-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway, Patrick set a Sprint Cup Series record for top-10 finishes by a woman driver with six for her career.
“GoDaddy has been an incredible partner for a very long time, almost nine years, and as I’ve said before, our brands have really grown up together,” Patrick said in the release. “It’s pretty cool, from a marketing perspective, that we helped GoDaddy build such strong brand awareness here in the U.S. I’m excited to work with GoDaddy on a personal level moving forward, but will miss having their bright green color on my race car next year.”
NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France had the following to say when asked on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Wednesday about GoDaddy’s impending departure:
“We’re always disappointed when for one reason or another a company changes course. But that happens, and I know recently they just went from being private to a publicly traded company and I’m sure that changes a lot of their budgets and strategy and that’s just how that goes.
“Danica is very marketable as we all know … and I’ve really been watching her and she’s competing more and more at a higher level, and she’s very competitive. She wants to really make her mark over a period of time, and it’s a tough place to do it with the kind of talent and parity that’s in NASCAR. But she’s showing progress and I think she’ll be just fine.”
Despite GoDaddy’s impending departure, one in four FORTUNE 500 companies are now invested in NASCAR, eight percent higher than in 2008. And over the last two years, more than 65 new companies became NASCAR team sponsors.
Later Wednesday morning, Patrick tweeted about the news.
Heck of a lot of season left to win driving the @godaddy car! Everything evolves and changes in life, I’m excited for what’s to come!
— Danica Patrick (@DanicaPatrick) April 29, 201