Jerry Bonkowski: Izod’s Sponsorship A Major Positive Step For IRL

Thursday’s announcement that IndyCar Racing – a.k.a. the Indy Racing League – has sold series title sponsor rights to the Izod sportswear company is very good news for not only the league, but auto racing in this country in general, particularly in this troubled economy.

That the folks from Izod are willing to spend multi-millions of dollars to potentially become to the IRL what Sprint has become to NASCAR is indeed heartening. It gives the IRL a much-needed lifeline; while the series wasn’t exactly drowning, a strong argument could be made that it has been floundering for far too long.

Izod’s money will be a significant life preserver, for sure, something that could potentially pull the IRL back into the boat when it comes to being a significant racing series worldwide, let alone in its own country.

Izod’s money may also bring about an ironic twist of sorts. Even though NASCAR was already on the upswing at the time the split occurred between CART and the upstart IRL in 1996, that same split turned millions of former open-wheel racing fans into NASCAR fans. Simply put, fans didn’t want to put up with the petty bickering and the differences between the two racing leagues.

Given that NASCAR is going through some tough times – and has for the last few years – perhaps Izod’s involvement in IndyCar may have a reverse effect as the 1996 split had and will lure disenchanted NASCAR fans to open-wheel racing.

The value is there for Izod with a cosmopolitan series full of international superstar drivers, as well as American stars such as Danica Patrick. I see the new affiliation being a win-win for everyone – except, maybe, for NASCAR.

One other thing that you likely won’t see in the IRL that has been a serious sticking point in NASCAR, particularly since Nextel and then Sprint became the series’ chief sponsor in 2004, is exclusivity. Whereas Sprint threw a fit to keep ATT out, and eventually forced Alltel to leave when it was acquired by another rival, Verizon, I don’t see that happening with Izod.

It knows that the IRL is No. 2 on the menu for racing fans in the U.S. Rather than force competitors out, it should welcome them in: the more sponsorship that can be attracted to the IRL, the stronger the overall series will become.

Perhaps NASCAR might learn a lesson from such a move – and wouldn’t that wind up being a twist of irony.