Maybe It’s Time for This Program to End
The military services formerly sponsored auto racing as a recruiting tool. In particular, they used to sponsor NASCAR racing.
But in some years ago the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard all cut their ties with NASCAR. Their sponsorship programs were expensive, and the services felt they simply weren’t getting sufficient benefit from the money spent to justify continuing the programs.
For some reason, the National Guard didn’t. They retained their NASCAR sponsorship program.
The National Guard spent approximately $88 million from 2011 to 2013 to sponsor NASCAR teams. An additional $38 million was spent to sponsor Indy car racing.
So, how did that work out?
Detailed numbers are available for 2012. That year, the National Guard spend $26.5 on it’s NASCAR sponsorship. From that, they got approximately 24,800 contacts who indicated the NASCAR connection prompted them to seek more information about signing up.
Of those 24,800, how many even qualified to enlist? 20.
None did.
In 2013, the number of contacts showing NASCAR as what prompted them to inquire about enlisting dropped to about 7,500.
The Army Times has an article with more details.
Maybe it’s time to end this program and use the resources elsewhere. It just doesn’t seem to be be working worth a damn.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Military issues, National Guard
Well, the Army stll sponsors those straight line guys in NHRA, also. I don’t know what their committment is in dollars, but I’m pretty sure that it ain’t pocket change.
Thanks Hondo.
Recruit: Names Bubba, saw you fellers at the NASCAR races, y’all hiring er what?
Recruiter: Well first, you’ll have to leave the beer can out side sir and spit out that chewing tobacco before we talk.
Recruit: Aright den. I thought y’all ud be easier to get along wit. No wat I mean?
Recruiter: Before we go much further, about how much to you weigh sir?
Recruit: Ima pushin bout 310 but I ain’t took a dump today, know wha I mean? Dis here T-shirt makes me look bigger doe.
Recruiter: And about how tall are you?
Recruit: I don’t know maybe bout 5’8″ widout da cowboy boots. Hey are y’all a hirin er what cause theira layin off over at da saw mill.
Recruiter: I tell you what sir, thanks for coming by, take this brochure and read over it and I’ll get back to you.
Recruit: Well y’all just ain’t friendly atol. Nawsiree! I thought Ida be on a bus by now atotin a gun and sayin ayessir and anosir!
Recruiter: Thanks sir, thanks again, don’t forget your beer.
Thank you NASCAR and the National Guard for wasting more taxpayer dollars on good ole Bubba and his beer belly buddies! You see all the best at a NASCAR race down south.
Sparks – that just shows you have never hang out around racetracks. To hell with the guys, the WOMEN…. There is a huge correlation between fast cars and hot women.
Trooper, unlike the silly, underpowered “round and round” guys, Tony and The Sarge have been fantastically successful in the last 10 years of NHRA. Army sponsorship has never looked so good.
9000 horsepower, thundering down the 1320 in splendid Black and Gold. It’s what racing dreams are made of 🙂
Oh….and no left turns 😀
Not to mention getting your fillings shaken out.
I’m a Formula 1 type guy and they have all the hot babes, too.
Maybe that NASCAR money could be reprogramed for Soldiers’ Relief. IMHO, a much more positive use of scarce resources.
So this mean more sponsorships for the National Criminal Leagues?
This smells political.
I don’t think the DoD should be sponsoring any sports events, but if they are going to outright ignore a huge popular sport like that they better get their dueling banjo stats right because in the same story each side has widely different number claims.
The point is that the program doesn’t seem to be working worth a damn, FatCircles0311.
In 2012, they spent $26.5 million to get 24,800 contacts – or over $1000 per contact. Of those, only 20 even qualified to enlist, and none did.
Thus, they spent $1.3+M per qualified candidate they attracted – and none of those even enlisted. The National Guard needs about 50,000 enlistees annually.
We can’t afford to spend that kind of money these days just because some NGB GO likes NASCAR racing.
Don’t blow a spark plug, Hondo.
“Rick Breitenfeldt, a National Guard spokesman, said 90 percent of Army National Guard soldiers who enlisted or re-enlisted from 2007 to 2013 indicated that they had been exposed to information about the service through NASCAR-related recruiting and retention materials.”
So which is it?
You’re comparing apples and oranges, FatCircles0311.
Brietenfelt almost certainly has an agenda, given him by NGB officals: justify that spending. The statement by Breitenfeldt indicates exposure, not whether that exposure resulted in a serious inquiry about enlisting.
Merely seeing the NG sponsored car while attending a race or on TV (or seeing the recruiting booth when attending or on TV) would count as “exposure”. Hell, everyone attending a NASCAR race or watching one on TV was similarly “exposed”. Ditto for anyone whose school had brochures mentioning the sponsorship. Hell, those merely reading or hearing that the National Guard sponsored NASCAR may well have been counted.
Notice, too, that Brietenfelt’s statements are somewhat fuzzy. Those statements don’t give hard numbers (a percentage only), don’t clearly ID what he’s talking about, and cover a broad period of time.
On the other hand, the hard data in the article (the 24,800 contacts during 2012, costing $26.5 million) appear to be an actual count of those who indicated that the NASCAR sponsorship was what had prompted them to actually inquire about potential enlistment. That’s a bit more than “being exposed” to National Guard recruiting materials – it indicates actual interest in enlisting generated by the sponsorship program. That type of interest is what the sponsorship was designed to generate.
Of those contacts, 20 were actually qualified. Zero enlisted.
Do the math. To generate those 24,800 contacts, the National Guard spent over $1,068 each. And only 20 were qualified to enlist – which works out to over $1.3 million spent per qualified individual who seriously inquires about enlisting.
That’s simply not affordable.
The Army also sponsors a Professional Bass Fishing team as well. I wonder what kind of bang for a buck they’re getting for that as well?
Dunno, PI. But if they’re also spending over $1000 per contact generated and getting zero enlistments some years, maybe that sponsorship needs to go away too.
I’ve also heard that UPS is ending their sponsorship of NASCAR also. Something about left turns….
NASCAR might not be an effective recruiting tool but there sure is a metric shit-ton of NASCAR fans IN the National Guard already
For whatever reason, the bean counters at USAAC were more than willing to spend tons of money and force recruiters to go to NHRA and NASCAR events, but the ROI was far less than events that they threw a tantrum if they were asked to fund, like paintball, in which my company averaged 10-11 contracts per event.
If only the services would sponsor porn they would reach about 99% of American males between the ages of 17 and 20 something. Of course, the gay porn sponsorship will have to be service specific. (Whisting here. Just whistling.)
dub the gay porn with The Village People and Cher and the Navy could make annual quota during Fleet Week in San Francisco
spend the money on the va. ignorant southern white trash car doesn’t have women in nationwide and except for indy 500 no women in indy car. what kind of message does this send to are women in the military? Yeah I know danica patrick and hopefully soon more young women like johanna long and taylor fern.
Troll.
Besides all the good reasons that others have mentioned, sponsoring racing teams is a terrific recruiting tool to attract women. Nothing quite like a set of racing leathers…
Oh, never mind.
$126 million + on what? And the return is 20 part timers? That could have been spent elsewhere on things the troops need. Yeah, its a comparitive drop in the bucket, but still, that could have bought alot of things for us…