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June 21, 2007
Nascar to Rename Cup Series in 2008?
Sources told Marty Smith from ESPN that the Cup Series will undergo another name change from the Nascar Nextel Cup Series to the Nascar Sprint Cup Series in 2008 to reflect the merger between Nextel and Sprint that took place in 2004, the same year Nextel took over as the sponsor of the Cup Series. Nascar declined comment, but Dean Kessel, Sprint's NASCAR marketing director, denied that a decision to rename the series has been made, and that there's numerous details that need to be sorted out before a decision can be made either way. However, someone who is directly involved going on the record to deny what Smith reported, hasn't stopped many from talking about this as if it's a done-deal that the series will be re-named in 2008. It's probably inevitable that the name change will happen, and I would expect it will happen sooner rather than later, but until someone goes on record to say that this is really happening, then the discussion about it in the media and by the fans needs to be in the purely speculative.
Some fans are making a big deal about this, but I don't care what the series is called. Winston Cup, Nextel Cup, Sprint Cup, it's just another company paying big money to get exposure by sponsoring the series. The racing isn't effected at all by the name that the series is called by. I also think the issue of Sprint-Nextel wanting to change the name of the series as a result of their merger, but being involved in legal manuvearing to prevent Cingular-AT&T to do the same thing with the #31 team is over-blown. Sprint-Nextel pays five or six times to sponsor the series than Cingular-AT&T pays to sponsor one car that races in that series. As such I think they have the right to change the name of the series any way they'd like, and as unpopular of an opinion as this may be among some of my fellow fans, I also think it gives them the right to have some say in what goes on with their competitiors as it relates to their sponsorships of the cars in the series.
Posted by silverdsl at June 21, 2007 09:51 AM