The USA Today reports that the U.S. Army is pulling out of NASCAR sponsorships in 2013. A bi-partisan bill which excluding sports sponsorships from the military budget was passed on Tuesday.
The Army spent $8.4 million on NASCAR sponsorship alone for 2012. Opponents of sports sponsorship cite the lack of the return on investment of its sponsorship. They argue that there are no concrete numbers which state that people have signed up with the Army based on its NASCAR sponsorship.
The Army will continue to sponsor NHRA racing and a high school All American Bowl because of better returns for the costs of the programs. No word on whether the U.S. Marines sponsorship in the UFC is a part of this budget cut.
Payout Perspective:
This can be a blow to the UFC if the military spending on sports sponsorships include the Marines sponsorship. As we posed earlier, it’s not clear if the WWE sponsorship is included here as well. The move is understandable from a military and governmental administrative standpoint but it does hurt the NASCAR drivers (and potentially) the UFC which rely on these sponsorship dollars. Below is an argument for the National Guard’s continuing sponsorship of Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Your headline is incorrect. The only thing that has happened at this point is that the US ARMY has pulled out of NASCAR. The US Government has not cut sports sponsorships as of yet.
A bill has been introduced… but nothing has been passed. As well as having failed 3 times previously…
Plus the Army and the Marines are two seperate units (army/navy).
It appears that Congress is looking at banning MMA sponsors now.