If Charlotte's NBA franchise is worth $250M, how much would a Jimmie Johnson NASCAR franchise be worth?

  Richard Childress (L) says franchising would be good for NASCAR (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   LAS VEGAS
  The NFL, the NBA, and Major League Baseball have it. Why not NASCAR?
  Franchising.
  With Michael Jordan about to pay some $250 million for the NBA's Charlotte franchise, the concept of NASCAR franchising might seem intriguing again.
  The idea of somehow franchising stock car teams has been bandied about by NASCAR men for years, and championed by some owners.
  "I've always been a big supporter of it," team owner Richard Childress says. "That's what I think we need.
   "It would help the sponsorship, it would help the whole sport."
   But just how it might work, that would be the trick.
   "It's a simple question but a complicated answer," says Ty Norris, who helped the late Dale Earnhardt build DEI and who now helps run Michael Waltrip's operation.
   Childress envisions a system that would rewards a team for having been in the sport for a number of years, as long as they've been active. An owner would initially buy a franchise from NASCAR, "and then it would belong to you," Childress says.
   Childress has been an owner in this sport since 1969.
   One of the newest owners is Tommy Baldwin, a former crew chief now trying to make it as team owner – not easy, as Ray Evernham would tell you.
    Franchising? "I think I would be in favor of it, because it would bring value to our team," Baldwin says. "It would bring instant credibility to all the race teams.
   "You could set standards on a lot of things. It would be a whole different world.
   "Now if you would get 'grandfathered' in, that would be one thing; if you would have to spend a lot of money (to get a franchise), that would be something else."
  

  

  Jay Frye (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  

   Jay Frye, general manager of the Red Bull team: "We've heard many different scenarios over the year. I'm sure there are positives to it, and negatives.
   "But if we had franchises, would it be the end-all for all our problems. No. It doesn't fix everything.
   "Whenever I've talked with NASCAR about that, there's never been any huge opposition to it, just that it would be very complicated.
   "And with the top-35 rules, you're protected.
   "The concept of franchise would be good.
    "But then the sport, going back to its roots, it was about anybody could show up at any time. And that's how Tommy Baldwin, for example, got in here; if we had franchising, that would have been different.
    "But the sport is changing, and managing success is difficult, and this thing has gotten really big.
    "So it's not something that 'Here it is.'
     "Do I believe it will happen one day? Probably some day, to some extent.
    "But will it fix everything? No. If you're in the top-35 and can't get sponsors, what's the difference?
    "We're not that far from being that now. Remember when they went to the top-35 rule, after some teams missed some races? That was a quasi-franchise."
    

    

    
    
Robby Gordon: would franchising help him? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
    

     Robby Gordon, one of the few owner-drivers in the sport, is in his sixth season running his own operation, and this is the toughest yet.
    He has been struggling to put together a full Cup tour sponsorship package, and it really isn't coming together. So he is 'partnering' with another team owner, Beth Ann Morgenthau, and he is expanding his other racing programs, adding the Indianapolis 500 to an already packed Off-Road schedule (he won that championship last year, and his next Baja run will be in the San Felipe 250 March 13-15, an off-weekend for NASCAR).
    "We are doing whatever it takes to pay our bills," Gordon says. "We have a variety of different programs, more than just NASCAR.
    "I never thought I'd do a Monster Truck, but we're going to do a Monster Truck for (sponsor) Monster.
    "We're going to do some things that are just a little bit different.
   "This is not a slam on any race track, but there are other markets that can give you exposure."
    So would franchising help him?
    "I think there has to be something," Gordon says. "I don't know if it's a 'franchise' system or what I would call 'unified marketing.'
    "This is the deal: There is value for you being in NASCAR, because there is a fan-base. But teams are chasing the same sponsors, and if one team low-balls a sponsor, then that devalues the sport.
    "Once you bring a sponsor in, at the base, it's very hard to get them at the proper funding.
    "Look at one of my sponsors, Polaris. I brought them in last year, and gave them a great deal a year ago. A great deal, to get them interested in NASCAR. But when we tried to get them to come back to try to do a deal for what it really costs to do that program, they're not interested, because they got it at the other price before.
    "Companies are all looking for what is the best deal today. And some sponsors are in here at low, low sponsorship levels, and teams just can't operate like that, and still compete at the same level as the top teams.
   "So I think there definitely has to be a unified marketing program between NASCAR and the teams."
  

    
   Tommy Baldwin: The ex-crew chief is now one of NASCAR's newest team owners (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

    Norris: "People are thinking that franchising for owners would fix their financial shortfall. But my understanding of a franchise system only really pays off when you sell. Now you have an asset that you can borrow money against; but you're still borrowing money, and you've got to pay it back.
    "Even back in the George Pyne days, NASCAR has been telling us 'Bring us a game plan. Help us understand the ownership side.' And there are some very, very bright people, who have been around high-end sporting organizations. But there is just not a model that has come together yet.
   "How can you start a franchise system and not reward people like Bill Davis and Teresa Earnhardt and Bud Moore?
   "So how do you start it now...after so many owners who have struggled and not made it.
   "Bud Moore was in the sport for 50 years, one of the founding fathers. But then he loses his sponsor, and he's gone. And it's sad."
   Leaving behind a shop, equipment and cars and parts....but without any equity.
   Norris understands that: he was working for Teresa Earnhardt at DEI when Dale Earnhardt Jr. won those two Busch (now Nationwide) championships. "A. J. Foyt came to us and wanted to buy DEI's 'two-time Nationwide team franchise,'" Norris said. "And we sold it to him for about $380,000. He got a dozen race cars, a bunch of pit boxes, transmissions, rear end gears, parts and pieces....stuff that had cost us millions to build up.
   "It's a tough Rubik's Cube to figure out: How do you establish your initial value? To whom do you award that value?"
   One potential issue, Norris says, is that some owners, if a franchise system were created and a specific value pinned on a team, might quickly want just to sell, to get that value.
   So Norris says "I feel they would have to ask owners to become 'vested,' like a 401-k: You must be an owner for so many years before you can get that full value.
    "Maybe five years."
    Otherwise Norris says owners might simply sell out to unknown investment groups: "What drives this sport are the personalities.
   "And you look at some teams and might not know who the owner really is.
   "I think it would hurt the sport to have investment groups owning the teams.
   "You want the personalities, you want them to be healthy, you want them to be financially supported. But you need the personalities – you need  Richard Childress, you need Jack Roush, not some capital investment group out of New York. You need these guys."

        

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  Jack Roush: personalities make the sport (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)