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-   -   SpeedRun Sponsorship & Organization Discussion (2008) (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-motorsport/36867-speedrun-sponsorship-organization-discussion-2008-a.html)

Mod Note - Some posts have been split from this original thread to form a new thread here on the relevant topic.

can someone explain what this nonsense about having a minimum number of stickers on your car was all about? Was it like free advertising for the sponsors or something like that?

That's just it. Spot on, Mr K.

Come on. You should know better than that. Sponsors like us pay a LOT of money for the event. Nonsense? Yes it's advertising for the sponsors.

How is it free??

And the spirit of motor racing has been to show respect for the companies that invest money in a sport you love. Even Michael Schumacher wore TIC-TAC and Tommy Hilfiger on his shoulders and chest for years.

Are you above that?

As an event sponsor, you are absolutely right. You pay a certain (large) amount of money, and you would like to see your brand displayed to the maximum. No issues.

What is debatable, of course, is whether competitors should be made to compulsorily run event sponsor logos. Schumacher ran Hilfiger, Tic-Tac, etc because they sponsored the Ferrari F1 team, not the F1 event itself.

I know this is going to be a can of worms, but I can't help wonder. Especially when not all competitors ran the stickers, and not all competitors were disqualified for not running them.

No I'm not above that Sam. I respect your point-of-view as a sponsor and representing a corporate who supported the event, but did your company (or anyone else's whose logo was forced upon the cars) support the participants? I doubt it (correct me if I'm wrong though).

Refusing participants who have paid the requisite entrance fee a run unless they put your sticker on their cars? I call that free unless you give them something in return. If you were MRF and gave the participants free tires for the event, you're perfectly within your rights to ask them to display your logo. If you sponsored the night's barley treats for all the participants, I understand. But as sponsors of the event, you or any of the other sponsors have ABSOLUTELY no right to ask a participant to put your stickers on his car. He is not obligated to do so because he has paid the entrance fee out of his own funds, not out of your sponsorship money.

Unless you pay contingency money, you have no right to ask anyone to put your stickers on their car. Period.

I mean all of this in the nicest possible way because you guys have supported the sport, but I disagree with forcing sponsorship logos on people who dont want to run them.

When you sponsor an event, you are given a certain number of promises. Part of those promises are that participants carry your logo.

Teams that run their own sponsors pay much money from time to time to the FIA or whoever else runs the event. 500 or 1000 bucks doesn't cut it.

People that participate in the SR are individuals (other than a few teams that also run their own logos, like Zapp etc) and the event is paid for in General by sponsors like JK Tyre and JBL. You pay that money because you are assured that the cars will carry your logos.

Believe you me, no sponsor gets his money's worth from a drag race. My company is not going to start selling more speakers because Wolf slapped a JBL sticker on his Vtec. But it makes us feel good and Wolf appreciates the fact that my company paid many lacs for the SR. That's all there is to sponsor stickers.

That is a simply a case of bad management. I believe that a participant in motor-sports should wear sponsor tags with pride and as a mark of respect to the companies that sponsor and promote the sport in general. Not because he has to.

Anyone who is above this fact is a spoil-sport. This is merely my opinion.

Yes, they pay an entry fee, a bond of some millions of dollars, etc. But then SR participants also pay entry fees. This fee is commensurate with and proportionate to the level of the event and the facilities provided.

True, and there's a whole lot of us who appreciate whoever does whatever, little or lot, for motorsport in India.

As was mostly everything else.

I'm thinking the MAI needs to lay a code of conduct for advertising down. Motorsport will grow, despite Hungama's best efforts, and it would be in everyone's best interests to know what's going on well in advance.

Another fault on the part of autocar for promising that. I guess they know that there aren't enough events around for people to run in. So this is how they capitalize on that weakness.

However, the question is not how much advertising mileage you gain by sponsoring a speedrun, but how much you lose by forcing unwilling participants to run your logo for free. Spoilsport or not, I'd be pissed if I were disqualified because I didn't want to run your stickers.

I had a lot of respect for Autocar because they pretty much were the pioneers of organized drag racing in India. I lost a little of that when I went to see the 2005 speedrun in Mumbai and Bangalore. Now I dont have any left after reading all these horror stories that people have posted here.

Another case of the "have/have-not" divide that's growing larger in India instead of smaller. Gautam Singhania and other rich friends of Autocar are obviously the "haves". All others who participated and the idiots (like myself in 2005) who came to see the event from far away are the have-nots.

Sam I urge you to look into the grassroots scene in the US. You will find that this whole sticker idea will sound ridiculous to anyone running in these events.

BTW, did the participants have to sign some sort of an agreement form, where all the rules n regulations were put down, which also mentioned that the participant's car would have to wear all the stickers in order to run?

If they did, then you can't argue against it, but if they didn't then it's wrong on the organiser's part to force the participants.

It's ok to provide the participants with the stickers, but whether they choose to use them or not should be left to them.

Shan2nu

i want to know if i enter the sr as an individual and my company wants to sponser me(the whole trip and evry expense including the stay and all) for it and in return want me to have their logos on the car will it be allowed

Yes, it will be allowed. From this year's SR:

In many motorsports events, sponsor money is extremely critical for even running the event. Sometimes trophys are paid for by the sponsors and sometimes the entire event is bankrolled by the sponsor. Many an INRC rally has been canceled in the last minute because the sponsor pulled out or because the organizers simply couldn't fine one. All this is because organizers get pretty much ZERO money from ticket sales or TV rights.

Frankly it is a conflict of interest when the sponsor is also a participant. In fact if you ran an amby with JBL stickers, it would have automatically come second. You know who will always come first!

Ajmat,

Thats a very serious comment/accusation/assumption. I don't think people will take too kindly to that on a public forum especially the sponsors. Do you have any kind of proof backing that theory or know something that we don't.

Viper

Treat it as an assumption then but a conflict of interest it is !

I could be wrong and I hope I am but the fluidity of the rules and lack of transparency based on the discussion over here gives this impression.

Yes, I am commenting on hearsay but perception of conflict of interest is virtually as bad as the real thing