It didn’t come at the optimum time for an announcement, but Saturday morning Newman/Haas Racing announced a partnership deal with driver Oriol Servia and the Telemundo Station Group for 2011, just as the IZOD Indy Car league was getting rolling in St. Petersburg, Florida. The announcement really capped a great week for the League, which saw a media tour in New York showcasing its drivers and the upcoming Centennial of the Indianapolis 500. Once again Indy Car is on the edge of making a great resurgence as a motorsports brand with its telegenic drivers, its speed and its technology, and the unique announcement on Saturday morning can give it another boost. Here's why.
The Hispanic marketplace continues to grow, and American sports are trying but not connecting as strong as they could. Soccer's strong fan base has given MLS a huge jump in terms of properly activating against the nuances of the Hispanic marketplace with brands and directly to fans, but other sports are still not really engaging the Hispanic audience as much as they could. Part of the reason is that effectively engaging the Hispanic audience means lots of things, and marketing to a Puerto Rican audience in New York or a Cuban audience in Miami or a Mexican audience in San Diego is not the same. It takes time to understand what each group enjoys and would find valuable and the. pairing that audience with the appropriate entertainment and the brands that go along with that group. Corporations spend millions to activate in the particular marketplace, many of whom are not top of mind with an Anglo audience, so finding the mix is not easy especially in large categories dominated by mainstream brands.
With that in mind, Telemundo and its affiliate group present a very large and lucrative gateway for racing into the Hispanic marketplace. Having a network, any network, take an aggressive branding position with a race team is unusual in itself. The fact that is a network that does not have a history in racing (Indy Car does not have even a Spanish language broadcast partner in the U.S. right now) makes it even more of a gateway opportunity. There was a time when The Cartoon Network was very active in NASCAR, but their ties to racing were more obvious because of a southern affinity through Turner and the direct pop to a large audience for merchandising that NASCAR fans could bring.
The Telemundo play is really the opposite. It is less of a chance to expose the network to an audience and more about using racing as a vehicle to increase opportunities for its existing sponsors and audience. The deal will give the network a chance to pass through local opportunities to its large roster of sponsors, creating an onsite activation opportunity in markets where races are held. It also aligns the network with an engaging and marketable driver for national promotions and provides a very unique litmus test to see how far and how creative the expanding network can get with its very loyal viewership. There will be a learning curve for sure, as a sales staff and the viewers get an immersion into what IRL is all about and both sides see if there is enough stickiness to see if the market actually will enjoy not just watching but attending and getting added value out of a partnership. One thing is for sure though. If the deal produces results, it could expose a host of new brands to racing and get the fastest-growing segment of the American population engaged in a consistent way with a sport they are probably not aware of, or have not had interest in through past experiences. It could set a new level of fan and brand engagement for all sports with the Hispanic audience, and by doing so may uncover dollars and eyeballs that may have looked elsewhere on a race weekend.
