By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor
LAS VEGAS — The news the NASCAR world had been anticipating for weeks finally came to fruition on Thursday, as Monster Energy was announced as the new entitlement sponsor for NASCAR’s Premier Series starting with the 2017 season.
Terms of the deal were not discussed by Brian France in a last minute press conference, but the Chairman of the sport did say that the agreement is a multi-year deal. France was pleased in aligning the sport with a popular brand like Monster Energy.
“Monster Energy is a brand built on excitement and enthusiasm, qualities that align with NASCAR,” said France. “This sponsorship position is the most unique in all of sports and entertainment, and we are thrilled to have a partner that will help us further elevate the series. Today’s announcement is the culmination of a thorough search, one that resulted in the right partner at this important time in our sport’s history.”
Monster Energy’s Chairman and CEO, Rodney Sacks was just as excited about the deal.
“Monster Energy has an established and versatile history in motorsports, and we’re thrilled to take this historic next step,” said Sacks. “We feel strongly that our brand is a perfect fit for this sport and its star athletes. We look forward to interacting with the millions of passionate NASCAR fans week-in, week out.”
Sprint/Nextel held naming rights to the Premier Series since the 2004 season, but in December of 2014 the company announced that it would not renew it’s contract. Thursday’s announcement was the culmination of a 24-month search that nearly finished too late. In addition to the naming rights to NASCAR’s Premier Series, Monster will also sponsor the yearly All-Star Race. The Beverage will also become the Official Energy Drink of NASCAR.
Monster has dipped it’s toes into NASCAR in recent years, as they have sponsored the Busch brothers — Kyle and Kurt. Kurt has had primary sponsorship from Monster, while Kyle has enjoyed the NOS Energy brand — which is owned by Monster.
Monster is of course the entitlement sponsor of the Supercross Motorcross Series.
