Big Fish Eat Little Fish

Geico Insurance formed a new model of car insurance some years ago: no agents, no agencies, direct sales, top notch service and lots of advertising. They have been very successful with their approach, and I have been pleased with the customer service I have received from them for the several years that I have been insured by them. I rather enjoy most of their ads, too.

One of their advertising venues has been to sponsor a race car in the NASCAR feeder series heretofore known as the Busch Series. The Geico car has been a fixture in that series for years, and has been piloted by some very popular drivers. The money provided by sponsors is essential to these teams, and without it they cannot survive.

This year Busch decided that the amount that NASCAR was demanding from them to sponsor the series was excessive and they dropped out. The new sponsor of the series is now Nationwide Insurance and, as a result of that new agreement with NASCAR, Geico will be banned from sponsoring a car in the series. So the team now sponsored by Geico is without a sponsor for next year, thanks to the sanctioning body of its sport.

This follows the action in the current season where NASCAR fought a series of court battles to prevent one of the Nextel Cup teams from carrying the AT&T logo on it’s car after Cingular was bought by that company and the Cingular brand was discontinued.

All in line with the great American policy of big fish eat the little fish. Which is fine, if you’re one of the big fish.

One of several reasons why I’ve lost interest in stock car racing.