NASCAR And Turner Sports Restructure And Extend Digital Partnership Through 2016

UPDATE #2 In a phone interview Monday, NASCAR Vice President of Digital Media Marc Jenkins said NASCAR is at the "tail end" of the process of thinking of what it wants to do with its website. He said NASCAR is working toward having several camera angles for fans to watch a race on the website, like what was done during the Chase For The Sprint Cup on the current website. "That drives a better fan experience when watching the race," Jenkins said. "In my mind, more important than just a pure stream of the race broadcast is the alternate camera angles, it's the dynamic leaderboard, it's the car data, it's all those things that help people enjoy the race more." Jenkins said they also hope the NASCAR site will help drive traffic to the drivers' websites and could offer a content management system teams and drivers could use in production of their websites. Scene Daily

01/31/12 The lack of an iPhone app for the sport has been a glaring, gaping hole in the interactive experience. "I can assure you it will be an important thing for us moving forward," NASCAR chief marketing officer Steve Phelps said last week. "Whether we have it for '12 or not, it's probably not something that's going to happen. But digital and social media is going to be a major plank for us as a sport. It's going to be a way for us to engage our fans, candidly, in a way we've never been able to before. We think our sport lends itself (to an app) as well as any sport – maybe better – because of the community nature and social nature of the sport. It clearly is coming." But fans may begin to see changes in the app world even earlier than expected. Tim Considine, Sprint's director of sports marketing, told SB Nation in a statement Monday: "Sprint is working with its internal partners to develop NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile for the iPhone, with an expected launch in the first half of the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season." SB Nation

01/30/12 NASCAR and Turner Sports announced today a restructuring and extension of their long-standing digital partnership. The new agreement takes the relationship through 2016, with NASCAR managing business and editorial operations for its digital platforms beginning in 2013 and Turner Sports continuing to oversee advertising sales and sponsorships across NASCAR-branded digital platforms.

“Turner Sports has been, and will continue to be, a great partner for NASCAR," said Brian France, chairman and chief executive officer of NASCAR. “Taking a leadership role as it relates to our digital rights is something we as the sanctioning body know is important for the future of our sport, the development of our drivers and most importantly, the experience for both our current fans and future followers."

“Turner Broadcasting and NASCAR have helped make each other successful for more than 28 years through a working relationship that, over time, has evolved with the media and technology landscape," said David Levy, president of sales, distribution and sports, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. “The latest extension of our partnership is a strategically and fiscally enhanced business model for our company and ensures that NASCAR.COM remains a core asset of Turner's leading digital ad sales portfolio. Our unrivaled sports assets and scale offer advertisers the means to deliver the most targeted and relevant marketing messages across multiple digital and mobile platforms and properties."

Under the new partnership, NASCAR will assume operational control in 2013 of all of its interactive, digital and social media rights including technical operations and infrastructure of all NASCAR digital platforms. Turner will continue to represent sponsorships and advertising for all NASCAR digital platforms, with the unique users from the NASCAR digital properties continuing to roll up to the Turner digital portfolio.

NASCAR’s comprehensive digital and social media portfolio includes NASCAR.COM, the official online destination of NASCAR which provides racing enthusiasts with an all-inclusive offering of engaging content including fantasy games, video highlights, social elements and in-depth editorial content. NASCAR.COM, and the sport’s other digital and social media platforms, have been managed by Turner Sports since 2001.

“This move is about the media, our sponsors and most importantly, our fans," said Marc Jenkins, vice president of digital media for NASCAR. “We will build an innovative portfolio of platforms that strives to be as diverse as it is comprehensive. For our fans our digital platform will become the online destination for all things NASCAR. For everyone else, it will be the vehicle we’ll use to turn them into fans."