TRR NASCAR Extra: The Family Footprint

Nobody asked me but:

The NASCAR media world is full of lists
these days. The Sporting News, however, has the best list especially for
NASCAR observers.

It’s the publication’s TSN Power 100,
the most powerful people in sports. At the top of the list is NFL Commissioner
Paul Tagliabue , not a
surprise. New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner is second because of his
coming entree into media with his Yankees Entertainment and Sports (YES) Network
which will allow him to pocket the ad revenues now going to the Madison Square
Garden Network or anyone else who wins the bidding for Yankee broadcasts.

Third is Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News
Corp., and the man who signed the checks for $8.5 billion in rights fees for
MLB, the NFL and NASCAR through 2008. Next Mark McCormack, the mega super agent
who founded International Management Group 40 years ago and changed the face
(and mirror, for that matter) of sports forever.

Now here’s the hit! Number five is
NASCAR Board Chairman Bill France, Jr. Ahead of people like: NBA Commissioner
David Stern in sixth, U.S. President George Bush in ninth, NHL Commissioner Gary
Bettman in tenth and MLB Commissioner Bud Selig who’s irrevocably tied to
Player’s Union Executive Director Donald Fehr in 14th.

Not only is France in the top five, but he’s
light years ahead of NASCAR President Mike Helton in 45th.

Still, the strength of NASCAR on the
nation’s sports horizon is impressive with six people directly tied to the
organization in the Power 100. They include:

Bill France Jr., in fifth
Helton in 45th
NASCAR VP of Corporate Communications
Jim Hunter, 52nd
NASCAR Vice President George Pyne,
66th
NASCAR driver and budding icon Jeff
Gordon, 68th
DEI Chairwoman Teresa Earnhardt, 95th

Jeff Gordon is the only driver and Theresa
Earnhardt is one of only four women on the list.

These are people directly tied to NASCAR
and not including the Anheuser-Busch presence with group vice-president of
marketing and wholesale operations August Busch IV and his vice-president of
global media and sports marketing Anthony Ponturo. They control the purse
strings of several sports, especially NASCAR, from the seventh starting spot in
row four! They have the power to get France’s undivided attention. Few others
can say that!

TSN’s Power 100 list will create
incredible blather about who should be where in the rundown, but it does
separate out a core of people who direct sports decisions in America. It also
implies that the NASCAR voice is among the strongest ones out there and the only
one from the motorsports world.

When the list appeared, the sports talk
world was aghast at the presence of NASCAR, especially France’s finish in the
top five. Forget the fact that he’s the patriarch of a family that OWNS the
brand, the organization and influences 12 of the nation’s top racing
facilities that are owned by a company The Family controls. According to The
Sporting News: "NASCAR is the paragon of vertical integration. Here’s
all you need to know about its profit margins: One estimate of France’s
personal wealth has him looking back at $1 billion." That’s largely money
made from racin’!

Now, here’s my argument: is it good to
have that much power in the seat of one man? Certainly it’s efficient.
Billions of bucks stop at his desk! But he alone has the power to determine
where those bucks go after that. He often doesn’t exercise that power alone
but what he doesn’t influence in the ever-expanding NASCAR universe certainly
wants his blessing when the decision is made anyway.

In many matters of motorsports, Bill
France, Jr. has more power than NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. To put it into
perspective, imagine if Tagliabue owned: the Cowboys, the Packers, the Bears,
the Rams and the 49ers, the stadiums they played in and controlled the
scheduling surrounding their games and the negotiations surrounding the
television contracts that control when their games are seen. And that would be
just a part of his power!

We haven’t talked about the fact he
would own or control the NFL brand, everything it appears on and every way it’s
seen. He’d also be making a power play to control every image of the NFL,
every spoken word of the NFL, every written word surrounding the NFL and every
place the letters NFL are seen! Do you think the country would let Paul
Tagliabue have that much power?

What happened when Bill Gates assumed a
fraction of that vertical power?

That’s only part of the power resting
under the control of Bill France, Jr. We haven’t even mentioned the fact that,
at least, five others on this list of Power 100 don’t make a decision
regarding their own business interests unless they run it by France at some
point in the process. There are others who, at least, consider his influence
when they make a decision regarding sponsorship, schedules, broadcast times or
product placement/marketing.

This isn’t to demonize Bill France. His
Family built a brand literally from the dirt of the Carolina hills and the sand
of a Florida beach. It did it in less than 50 years. And it did it against the
odds of regionalism, activity discrimination and media factionalism that
dismissed their product as inconsequential when weighed against the more
traditional passtimes of greater interest to a nation.

Still, with brilliant business decisions
and, frankly, a death grip hold on the purse strings, The France Family built a
brand that’s envied by every other sports marketing entity on he planet,
including The Olympics.

I still believe that’s too big of a
footprint for one man to have.