NASCAR Sponsorship: What It Costs, What You Get, and Why Brands Keep Coming Back

NASCAR sponsorship is probably the most competitive sponsorship market in motorsport. Full stop. It's viewed as a badge of honour for brands that get involved, and the deals that get done at the top level make most European racing budgets look like pocket money.

I've spent over 30 years in motorsport commercial operations. The leadership team at SuperHub has collectively raised millions in sponsorship and funding deals across multiple series and continents. NASCAR operates differently to anything in European motorsport, but the fundamentals of what makes a sponsorship work — and what makes a brand write a cheque — remain exactly the same.

Here's the thing about NASCAR that sets it apart from almost every other racing series on the planet: the livery matters as much as the result. Maybe more.

In most motorsport at lower levels, you get what I call brand vomit. Fifteen different logos plastered across a car, each one fighting for attention, none of them getting any. The car looks like a moving billboard that's been designed by committee after a particularly heavy Friday night. NASCAR doesn't generally do that. More often than not, the primary sponsor gets the whole car shell. One brand, one design, one identity thundering around the track at 200mph. It's clean, it's bold, and it works.

And because of how NASCAR broadcasts work, the TV coverage, the camera angles, the sheer volume of airtime, whether you win or not, having the right livery means you're getting decent coverage. The cameras pick up those cars whether they're leading the pack or running mid-field. Your brand is on screen either way.

Some NASCAR liveries have become genuinely iconic. Not just in motorsport circles, but in American culture full stop. Richard Petty's STP scheme on the #43 is arguably where NASCAR sponsorship really started — that Petty Blue with the Day-Glo red stripe debuted at the 1972 Daytona 500 and quite literally put NASCAR advertising on the map. STP became a household name overnight.

Dale Earnhardt's black #3 Goodwrench car. Jeff Gordon's rainbow DuPont scheme that launched the "Rainbow Warriors" nickname. The M&M's cars that have been a mainstay for decades. Kyle Busch's various iterations. GoDaddy's attention-grabbing designs. McDonald's. Budweiser. Miller Genuine Draft,  Rusty Wallace won ten races in 1993 with that scheme, and people still talk about it.

These aren't just paint jobs. They're brand identities that became inseparable from the sport itself. When fans pick their favourite driver, a surprising number of them do it based on how the car looks. That's the power of getting the livery right.

More recently, Amazon Prime signed a multi-year deal with Hendrick Motorsports for Chase Elliott's #9 car. Freeway Insurance stepped up as a NASCAR Premier Partner for 2026. Traveller Whiskey, Chris Stapleton's brand sponsored a car at the Daytona 500. Even the Backstreet Boys got involved, sponsoring a car at Las Vegas to promote their residency at the Sphere. The breadth of brands investing tells you everything about NASCAR's commercial appeal.

The cost of running a NASCAR Cup Series team is significantly less than running a Formula 1 team, mainly because the cars aren't quite as technically advanced — although they've improved dramatically in recent times with the Next Gen chassis. But as stock car racing goes, it's some of the most exciting racing that exists.

Here's how the numbers break down for the Cup Series:

Single Race Primary Sponsorship (Smaller Team): $75,000 to $120,000 per race. This gets your brand on the hood, side panels, roof and TV panel. You'll also get VIP hot passes, hospitality and promotional rights. Some teams offer "default" primary deals where you step in for races where no primary sponsor is booked — a smart way in at a reduced rate.

Single Race Primary (Top Team): $350,000 to $500,000 per race. The premium reflects the team's performance, TV exposure and driver profile. Hendrick, Penske, Joe Gibbs Racing — these operations command top dollar because they deliver top coverage.

Full Season Primary Sponsorship: $13 million to $19 million for a mid-tier competitive team. For the very top operations with championship-contending drivers, you're looking at $35 million or more per season. That buys you the whole car, the whole season and a comprehensive activation package.

Associate Sponsorship: $200,000 to $1.5 million per season depending on logo placement. Rear quarter panels, B-pillars, rear window sides — different positions at different price points. At $200,000 a year you can get sticker space on the B-pillars. At $1.5 million you're getting prominent placement and a decent chunk of the activation benefits.

Even though NASCAR is predominantly oval tracks, those ovals create a kind of theatre that road racing simply can't match. It's incredibly noisy. The crashes are intense. The pack racing means cars are inches apart at absurd speeds. And the fans American motorsport fans bring an energy and BBQ to race weekends that's part sporting event, part festival, part barbecue.

The TV coverage reflects this. NASCAR's new deal with Fox Sports running through 2031 means extensive broadcast coverage across the Cup Series, Xfinity Series and Truck Series. The 2026 season kicked off with the Daytona 500 on February 15th over 36 races across the season, each one putting sponsor brands in front of millions of viewers.

So whether your driver wins or finishes fifteenth, the coverage is there. And because NASCAR has moved to having multiple primary sponsors per car across a season rather than one exclusive deal, brands can get involved at price points that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago.

A primary NASCAR sponsorship goes well beyond sticking your logo on a car. The standard package typically includes:

Branding: Hood, rear quarter panels and TV panel placement. Your brand is the dominant visual identity of that car for your sponsored races.

Hospitality: VIP hot passes giving access to the garage, pit lane and team areas on race day. Premium seating on the pit box. The hospitality experience in NASCAR is genuinely world-class and creates the kind of B2B networking opportunities that justify the investment on their own.

Driver access: Appearances, content creation opportunities, promotional rights to use the driver's image and likeness. In NASCAR, the drivers are genuine celebrities with massive followings.

Content and PR: Social media support from the team, PR coverage, content creation opportunities throughout race weekends. The content angle is increasingly important — teams now produce significant social and digital content that sponsors can leverage.

Activation support: Retail activations, trade show support, special events. NASCAR teams understand that sponsorship only works if the brand activates it properly, and they'll work with you to maximise the commercial return.

NASCAR has one of the most loyal fan demographics in sport. The fan base actively supports sponsor brands, it's part of the culture. Buy the products, support the sponsors, that's how you keep your driver racing. This translates into measurable purchasing behaviour that very few other sports can match.

Add to that the sheer scale 36 points-paying races plus exhibition events, each drawing hundreds of thousands of fans trackside and millions more watching at home and you've got a marketing platform that delivers consistent, repeated brand exposure over an eight-month season.

The competitive nature of getting involved is actually a positive signal. Brands don't fight to get into dying markets. They fight to get into platforms that deliver results. NASCAR sponsorship delivers results.

Look, American motorsport isn't our home turf in the same way BTCC and British GT are. But the principles are identical. A sponsor is a sponsor. A proposal is a proposal. A poorly activated deal is a poorly activated deal whether it's at Brands Hatch or Daytona.

Where we add value for brands considering NASCAR is in the strategic assessment: does this series align with your commercial objectives? Is the budget proportionate to the expected return? Are you being offered a fair deal or are you overpaying for what you're getting? And critically, do you have the activation strategy to make the investment work?

We've helped brands navigate motorsport investment across multiple series and continents. The budgets change, but the questions don't.

For the complete playbook on motorsport sponsorship including the principles that work across any series — grab a copy of Race Funded on Amazon.

Whether you're a brand considering your first motorsport investment or you're already in the paddock and want to assess whether NASCAR makes commercial sense, we can help you make an informed decision.

Book a free strategy call and let's talk through what NASCAR sponsorship could look like for your brand. No obligation, no hard sell. Just honest advice from people who've been doing this for three decades.