Office Depot plans to end its primary sponsorship deal with Tony Stewart’s No. 14 Sprint Cup Series entry at season’s end.
The company will not return to sponsor Stewart’s Chevrolet as it did this year for 22 races, although Office Depot may remain involved with the team in a different capacity.
“The decision to significantly curtail our relationship with Stewart-Haas Racing was very difficult and one that we did not take lightly,” said Mindy Kramer, senior director of communications for Office Depot. "However, the changing business landscape warrants a realignment of priorities and resources.
“That being said, Tony Stewart has been an exceptional ambassador for our brand, and he has gone above and beyond in everything that he has done for our company. Being a part of his legendary 2011 championship run was a moment of tremendous pride for everyone at Office Depot.”
Stewart-Haas Racing now faces the daunting task of replacing Office Depot as well as the U.S. Army, which announced earlier this season it would cease sponsoring Ryan Newman’s No. 39 ride at the end of the year.
That’s a real check on how sponsorship hunting is going. Tony couldn’t of had a better year last year and this ones not over yet. If you have $50,000,000.00 you could be on the best cars in the Cup Series.
I’m a Stewart fan so i hate to say I saw this coming, but I did. Office Depot isn’t doing all that well. The stock is down over 35%. Income is down tremendously. Net profit is in the negative…this is a failing company. And I think the costs of sponsoring NASCAR significantly outweigh the return for most companies. I’ve seen people say that a primary sponsor on a top Cup level car is around 1 million per race. That’s insane. 1 million bucks can buy you a very significant advertising campaign. Even at the Nationwide level Kenny Wallace has tweeted that to put on a competitive car for ONE race is 100,000$. There’s no way most cars are getting anywhere near 100,000$ worth of exposure during a nationwide race. Nascar is going to need to take a hard look at their operating costs very soon or we’re going to see teams shrinking away.
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