Hospitality: Give Your Sponsor a Place to Do Business

Fans come to the races to be entertained. Sponsors come to do business. That difference explains why hospitality matters so much in motorsports. For a brand, a race weekend is a chance to put its dealers, buyers and best customers somewhere fun, give them an experience they couldn't buy on their own, and make the next sales call a lot easier.

I learned this from the other side of the table. Years ago at the Long Beach Grand Prix, I asked Roger Browning, who ran Hewlett-Packard's IndyCar program, why HP spent so much money on racing. He told me all he needed was one buyer to come in and order 100,000 units for a big company, and the whole program was worth it. When I asked whether that had ever happened, he said it had, and that was why HP was still there. The logo on the car wasn't the point. Getting that one buyer into the hospitality area, onto the pit box and in front of the team was.

Give them an experience they can't buy

Kevin Miller, then president and CEO of USAC, put the experience at the center of every sponsorship. "The experience that you're providing sponsors is such a big part of the entire package," he said on the activation panel at the Motorsports Sponsorship Summit. "When they get to the track, whether it's the food you're serving, whether it's the tickets you're offering, they want to feel like they're part of the competition. They want to feel like they're part of the event."

USAC has to keep raising the bar for its longest partners. "We have a very longstanding sponsor. I think it's going on 11 or 12 years with Amsoil. And every year, we have to deliver more and more to keep them engaged as a sponsor," Miller said. So the series bought a two-seat sprint car. "We're going to now be giving two-seat sprint car rides on behalf of Amsoil for their dealers. So for their dealers to come to sprint car races and jump in a car." ▶ Watch Kevin Miller explain it

Notice who gets the ride. It isn't a fan or a contest winner. It's the oil company's dealers, the people who decide how much product to stock. The sponsor is passing the hospitality through to its own customers, which is how a racing program turns into more business for the brand.

Invite the sponsor's customers, not just the sponsor

The biggest brands at the biggest events work the same way. Martelli, CEO of the Mint 400, described how BFGoodrich, the race's title sponsor, uses the event. "What they've realized is these types of events aren't just good for activating to customers, but also to businesses," he said. "So they fly in dozens of their dealers and their retailers and they bring them to the event. They showcase products. They introduce products at our event." ▶ Watch Matt Martelli on BFGoodrich

A grassroots team can do a smaller version. When I get asked how a racer at the local level should find sponsors, I suggest looking at a map. Find the biggest businesses within an hour or an hour and a half of the track, and offer them hospitality: tickets, a place to sit and a way to bring their own customers to watch your races. The spectators are there for entertainment. For the business, it's a chance to treat customers to something memorable, and you're the one making it possible.

A hospitality tent attracts other sponsors

There's a second audience for hospitality that racers often forget, and that's other sponsors. When Miller told the summit panel about his beer sponsor, I pointed out that many brands sponsor less for the logo than for the chance to meet other companies at the event. A hospitality tent, whether it belongs to a series or a single team, gives those people a reason to stop by, and the business-to-business conversations that start there are valuable to every partner involved.

Miller's example shows how little it can cost. "At our Porsche series, we celebrated every day with a prost with Warsteiner beer. And it became a huge hit for the drivers to come over after the racing to unwind. And we served pizzas. We had a pizza station and Warsteiner beer," he said. "Very small sponsorship, virtually no money, just free beer from Warsteiner. But it created a party in the paddock." ▶ Watch the clip

The earlier summit heard how that paddock party paid off for the whole series. "The overall lift of the entire series from something so small as free beer really, really helped us as a series grow, and to the point where last year's series we averaged 23 cars and this year we're averaging 52 cars because people came up said that's a fun series," Miller said. ▶ See the full story

Bring people into your pit

You don't need a series budget to host. Chris Bishop's family drag racing team is sponsored by Seafoam, and the team runs its own hospitality at the track. "We invite people to come down to our pits, we put on a hospitality area, we're getting some tents made right now, we're offering ticket giveaways, we do full media stuff obviously," Bishop told the Drag Racing Sponsorship Summit. "We try to bring people in and educate them about the product and we try to leverage our family team atmosphere." ▶ Watch Chris Bishop on this

That's hospitality and sampling together. The tent gives people a reason to stay, the family atmosphere makes them comfortable, and the team uses the time to explain products most visitors didn't know the brand made.

Do it better than easy

Wing Lam, co-founder of Wahoo's Fish Taco, has spent years feeding athletes and guests at events, and he notices when hospitality is an afterthought. He hears the same explanation everywhere. "The easy answer is because it's easy, but easy doesn't mean it's good, right? So I come from a place where I go, why can't we do it better?" he said in his Meet the Sponsors interview. Once he raises the standard at an event, he said, nobody wants to go back: "Once I set the bar, they're like, oh man, no, we can't go back." ▶ Watch Wing Lam on hospitality

For a racer, the lesson is that people remember how they were treated. Decent food, a shaded place to sit and a host who pays attention beat a cooler of warm soda.

Ask what kind of hospitality the sponsor wants

Hospitality isn't right for every sponsor, and assuming it is can waste everyone's time. Travis Shoemake learned that while driving a dragster sponsored by Sheetz, the regional convenience-store chain. He gave Sheetz options: bring people from headquarters to the drag strip, have him represent the brand in the community, or put the emphasis on logos. He even got the sanctioning body to offer a 30-second national TV commercial, "and Sheetz said, that's not our thing. We're not TV people. We care about our community."

He expected company executives to show up at the track. They didn't. "No one from Sheetz, not a single person that worked at a Sheetz convenience store came to the drag strip, and that's because that's not what they wanted to do," Shoemake said. "They're like, no, we're not coming. That's not our model. We don't want to take employees. We want you to go pump gas at gas stations. I went to 18 Sheetz in 21 days. That was our model." ▶ Watch Travis Shoemake tell the story

The hospitality Sheetz wanted happened at its own stores, with the driver as the guest of honor. Ask the question before you rent the tent.

The takeaway

• Offer hospitality the sponsor can pass through to its dealers, buyers and best customers.
• Look for the biggest businesses within an hour or two of the track and invite them to bring their customers.
• Use a simple paddock gathering, even free drinks and pizza, to bring other sponsors and teams together.
• Make hospitality comfortable and memorable. Easy isn't the same as good.
• Ask each sponsor what kind of hospitality it wants. For some, the right place is their own stores.