NASCAR has blinked in its stare-down with some of its top drivers over soft drink sponsorships.
That was hard to tell from the disingenuous, face-saving, issue-muddling statements released by both sides Wednesday. You had to understand the crass commercial truth behind the tap-dancing.
The bottom line is that NASCAR declined to penalize Jeff Gordon for his bypassing of victory lane following Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis–his artful refusal to help promote a sports drink made by Coca-Cola, which pays NASCAR directly. Gordon has his own contract to promote Pepsi.
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Only last week NASCAR slapped his young teammate, points leader Jimmie Johnson, with a $10,000 fine for trying to cover up a display bottle of Coke-made PowerAde in victory lane at Pocono, Pa., because Johnson is contracted to promote Pepsi-made Gatorade.
Previously this season, Pepsi-Gatorade drivers had been knocking the PowerAde displays off the roofs of their cars in victory lane. On July 25, NASCAR President Mike Helton ordered a stop to the bottle-toppling.
The reason this is such a hot issue is because “victory lane celebrations” in NASCAR are staged and choreographed, largely as live TV commercials.
Absurd and despicable as this may seem to, say, baseball fans–who helped shout down even the notion of commercial logos on bases last spring–NASCAR has shown no shame when it comes to trying to sell something to you, the public, during every single second you pay attention to the “sport” (and I use that term advisedly, for NASCAR has evolved into more an advertising vehicle than anything else).
Hopelessly addicted to money as NASCAR is, purity of sport must be deemed a lost cause there, and a fair divvying up of the booty is all that’s left to consider.
NASCAR has always treated its drivers and teams as “independent contractors,” mainly so it could avoid liability for their death or injury, but also to avoid responsibility for retirement pensions, sponsorship acquisition and other than paltry health and death benefits.
But with that avoidance of responsibility comes some leeway for the drivers and teams, to fend for themselves financially.
That’s what Gordon and Johnson were doing when they knocked the PowerAde bottles away during the live TV shots, and when Johnson covered up the display bottle, and when Gordon drove away from it entirely.
Wednesday, Gordon issued an apology for supposedly getting caught up in the emotion of the moment, after his record fourth win at Indy, and stopping on the start-finish line to celebrate, rather than driving into victory lane. NASCAR’s Helton issued a statement accepting the apology, and recognizing “the elation and spontaneity a win like Sunday’s can produce . . . “
All of that fizz is hard to swallow, if you understood the tense brinksmanship going into Sunday, and if you heard Gordon’s clear message after he’d won, and avoided victory lane until after the live TV cameras were gone.
“Everyone has their sponsorships to take care of,” he said then. “I think there really needs to be a meeting of the minds to work this out, because I don’t think it’s being worked out in everybody’s favor.”
Gordon said he intends in the future to follow NASCAR victory lane protocols, and Helton said he expects drivers to follow those protocols.
But we’ll have to wait and see the details of said protocols.
When NASCAR, for its own commercial benefit, but not the benefit of the drivers in question, orders “independent contractors” to help promote products against their wishes and against their personal financial interests . . . well . . .
If the U.S. Department of Labor or the Internal Revenue Service were to scrutinize the situation thoroughly, NASCAR might have a hard time proving the drivers are not “employees,” with all the employer responsibility that entails.
The other spot of thin ice here is that NASCAR, for all its billions in revenues for itself, would be nothing without its stars.
On and off for years the drivers have pondered the notion of standing up for themselves, together–witness the Teamster attempts to organize them in 1961, the Richard Petty-led boycott of the inaugural race at Talladega in 1969 and most recently the fatality/safety crisis of 2000-2001.
Webster defines greed as “acquisitive or selfish desire beyond reason.”
When NASCAR, to make itself some extra money from Coke-PowerAde, comes to brinksmanship with its life’s marrow, its drivers, that is beyond reason.