RFK Racing Poaches Massive Sponsor Ahead of 2025 Season
What’s Happening? As a conclusion to a long-running rumor, Kroger and RFK Racing announced a new partnership beginning in the 2025…
A recent report that King’s Hawaiian could leave RFK Racing has sparked an interest among fans in sponsor conflicts in NASCAR history. This is by no means the first time something like this has happened. So, how did some past sponsor disputes turn out?
What’s Happening? As a conclusion to a long-running rumor, Kroger and RFK Racing announced a new partnership beginning in the 2025…
Perhaps the most overlooked signing of the NASCAR off-season was Brad Keselowski’s RFK Racing signing major grocery chain Kroger to a sponsorship deal. At the time, this sponsorship, which allowed the team to expand to three cars in 2025, made RFK one of the most sponsored teams on the circuit in 2025.
However, a report from Adam Stern on Dec. 5 stated that sources close to that sponsor, King’s Hawaiian, could leave RFK. As odd as this was, with it being so late in the Silly Season, this is due to Kroger joining the team for 2025.
Kroger, which carries King’s products, is known for sharing sponsorship with one of its brands race to race. For example, the No.47 car, which Kroger sponsored last season, featured Kroger alongside Vitaminwater at Martinsville.
NASCAR has a history of sponsor disputes; however, this one gives fans insight into the business side of racing. While this departure is quiet and seemingly on understandable terms, sponsorship disagreements have created some odd moments in NASCAR history.
What’s Happening? NASCAR and two of its teams, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports, are set to face off in the…
In a sport so focused on sponsors, this is obviously not the first time a team and a sponsor have had difficulties, be they calm or dramatic. While it would be difficult to retrace the entire history, past seasons have given astute examples of the most and least interesting of these.
For example, in 2002, Cingular Wireless signed a long-term contract with Richard Childress Racing. In 2004, NEXTEL, a fellow communications company, purchased the naming rights for NASCAR’s Cup Series. Cingular, as a team sponsor, was grandfathered in. However, when AT&T purchased the brand and attempted to rebrand the No. 31 car as AT&T, NEXTEL, soon to become Sprint, tried to stop this.
This dispute led to Jeff Burton’s car racing without a sponsor on the hood. Furthermore it stemmed into a lawsuit resulting in a settlement. This settlement allowed RCR to retain AT&T until the end of the 2008 season, allowing the team time to find a new sponsor.
A much less dramatic case of conflicting sponsorship began when Monster Energy purchased the naming rights to the Cup Series prior to the 2017 season. Following this, teams such as Hendrick Motorsports, who had a deal with PepsiCo and its drinks, opted to keep Monster branding off of its show cars and merchandise, including diecast. Monster, according to several reports at the time, approached this with understanding.
NASCAR managed to remove such disputes from the sport in 2020 with the introduction of its premiere partner program. However, as we learned last week, sponsor conflicts will continue well into the future of NASCAR.
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