Business of Sports June 4, 2009, 3:11PM EST

GM: NASCAR's Latest Problem

GM's bankruptcy is only the latest problem plaguing NASCAR, whose major sponsors and target audience have been badly hurt by the dire economy

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1. NASCAR: Revving in Support of Chevy, and the Rest of GM
Less than a week after NASCAR called a mandatory state-of-the-circuit meeting for all Sprint cup drivers and team owners to discuss the dire economy, General Motors filed for the largest industrial bankruptcy in U.S. history. While the U.S. government will pump an estimated $50 billion into the failed company, ensuring at least its short-term survival, there was no word earlier this week as to what the bankruptcy might mean for GM's motorsports sponsorship programs, putting their estimated $125 million annual NASCAR investment into question.

NASCAR has likely been hurt more than any other sport as a result of the current economic climate. Attendance is down because of the high cost of traveling to races, while TV ratings are off due to a perceived lack of exciting ones. Every telecast on FOX has seen a drop in ratings from the respective 2008 broadcast, with total ratings on the network down 13% from last year. And only an estimated 100,000 people attended the NASCAR Sprint Cup Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway, well off the approximate 140,000 in years past.

Among possible solutions discussed by NASCAR execs—including Brian France and Lesa France Kennedy, grandchildren of founder Bill France Sr.—at the recent summit were how to bring back fans who may have left the sport, NASCAR's image, and the circuit's new car. Broadcast partners are solid, with TNT and ESPN splitting broadcasting rights through the remainder of the regular season, and ABC airing the Chase for the Sprint Cup when it starts in September. What's more, Danica Patrick's IRL contract runs out at the end of this season, and NASCAR undoubtedly will make a push for her to switch over.

In Dover, GM was able to at least celebrate some success on the track. Chevrolet driver Jimmie Johnson won the race, with Tony Stewart, another Chevy driver, taking second. In all, 21 NASCAR racers drive Chevrolets, including Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Johnson, and Stewart; Chevrolet has won the last six Manufacturers' Championships, and 10 of the last 14.

NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick plans on staying the course with Chevrolet, which cut NASCAR spending by 30% at the start of the season but has changed little since the announcement. "I have a lot of faith in GM, especially Chevrolet," he was quoted as saying. "I've been with them for a long, long time. Our business is good, the products are good…we're going to be O.K."

2. Cowboys Stadium Opens for Business
It figures. There was absolutely no way high-flying Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was going to be content with a standard ribbon-cutting ceremony when he officially opened the doors to his $1.15 billion stadium in Arlington, Tex., last week. Instead, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Jones "placed large white panels with the stadium logo on its west end-zone glass doors to look like a ribbon. Along with his family and Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck, Jones pulled a lever to open the glass doors, "symbolically cutting the ribbon," after which nearly 1,500 Cowboys employees, their invited guests, and local leaders filed into what is now the biggest and grandest sports playground in the U.S.

However, the stadium's more than 2,000 workers still have much work to do before the June 6 George Strait/Reba McEntire concert, the July 19 CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer quarterfinal doubleheader—the stadium's first sporting event—and before the Cowboys' home preseason opener Aug. 21. Some parking lots are still to be paved; locker rooms, suites, and back-of-house areas continue to be finished out; road work also continues on surrounding surface streets and the nearby highway; and 20-odd luxury suites out of an inventory of 280 remain to be sold. But there's no doubt at all in the collective minds of the stadium's brainchildren—from Jones to chief architect Bryan Trubey of Dallas-based HKS Inc., Cisco (CSCO) technologists, executives of general contractor Manhattan Construction, and structural engineer Walter P. Moore—that in Texas-speak, they'll "get 'er done."