Is it time for NASCAR to study again the concept of franchising Sprint Cup teams?

  Remember team owner Bud Moore, here (L) with Bobby Allison after winning the Daytona 500? A franchise would have given him some equity in stock car racing when he wanted to get out, instead of just a shop filled with machinery and used cars. (Photo: Daytona Racing Archives)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   LAS VEGAS
   With the U.S. economy still only sluggishly recovering, and stock car teams struggling to deal with sponsorship issues, the idea of franchising NASCAR teams is being heard once again.
   NASCAR executives have long resisted the concept of franchising – say, like the National Football League works – though team owners like Felix Sabates have been strong advocates of the move, as a way of ensuring sponsors, and potential sponsors, that a team would indeed not be shut out of any of the Sprint Cup tour's 36 events.
   NASCAR's top-35 rule, which ensures the top-35 in the standings a spot in the field, has been a defacto franchising rule. It was created back when there were more top sponsored teams, and after a couple of those high-dollar teams didn't qualify for races, aggravating sponsors.
   Now, however, there has been a sharp reduction in top teams:
   The current Ganassi-Sabates-Earnhardt operation, which won the Daytona 500 with driver Jamie McMurray, is a two-car operation now, but the partners two years ago ran seven teams, only to have to cut back.
   The Richard Childress operation, for another, has had to cut back from four teams to three this season, with the loss of sponsor Jack Daniels.
   Another example is the recent 'merger' of the Robby Gordon team and the formerly idled Beth Ann Morgenthau team.
   Too, the Richard Petty/George Gillett four-car operation has 'merged,' in some way, with the Doug Yates two-car operation.
   How any NASCAR franchising program might work is ripe for debate. In one scenario, team owners could pay NASCAR a franchising fee for each team. Whether or not NASCAR officials would like to impose limits on how many such teams any one man or company might want is unclear. Currently NASCAR is limiting owners to four teams.
   What other rules NASCAR might want to impose – say, on the potential resale of a franchise – is also unclear.
   What NASCAR has done in recent years is to persuade newcomers to the sport to buy into an existing team.
   Part of the franchising debate goes back to the 'Bud Moore' issue: Moore fielded a NASCAR team for decades, but when he fell on hard times, he – and others – realized that, despite all those years in the sport, team owners like that had earned no 'equity.'
   If Moore's team, for example, were a franchise, then he could have sold that franchise, giving him equity.
   One potential major problem for NASCAR would be how to select those men allowed to buy a franchise. Should anyone who currently has a full-time team be allowed to buy a franchise? Or should anyone – say, like the Woods – who has fielded teams in NASCAR for a number of years be given the option too, even if not running a full-time team at the present, because of sponsorship issues.
  
    

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  Teresa Earnhardt (R, with daughter Taylor) once ruled a four-team DEI, but was forced to merge. Franchising might have made a difference (Photo: Teresa Earnhardt)