Last Year, Why Was Jeff Burton's Car Usponsored? ?

Question

In the beginning and end of 2007 Burton had Cingular/AT&T as a sponsor but at Bristol and California he was just an orange car. Why was that? Was RCR in problems?

Answer 1

It was fine for cingular to sponsor the car, nextel had made that clear but then when at&t bought them, Nextel knew thats not what they had agreed upon plus as far as marketing goes AT&T is world known so Nextel defitnitly didnt want that to happen so when at&t bought them and officaly put there sponsor on the hood, NExtel had the car just orange for the next two races until AT&T went to court to have it on the car and for the remainder of this season as well.

Thats why they dont whine about alltel being on ryans car, it was already there so they cant force the sponsor out but if a bigger company like Verizon comes in and buys alltel and puts Verizon on the sponsor, then it conflicts with NEXTEL, they want to be the only phone company affliliated with NASCAR if they can

Answer 2

Conflict between NASCAR's series sponsor and Jeff Burton's sponsor.

Answer 3

If memory serves it had something to do with the person who owned the Cingular symbol or something.

Answer 4

not an RCR problem but a lawsuit that involved ATT and Cingular against the NASCAR Sponsor NEXTEL...that is what kept the ATT off his car

Answer 5

He was sponsored!  Our buddy's at NEXTEL petitioned NASCAR to stop the AT&T/Cingular  logo from being on his car ! NASCAR, because NEXTEL spent mega bucks to be the title sponser, got away with it, because the France family are wimps and are money grubbers. Instead of standing up to NEXTEL, they caved.

Thanks to AT&T spending millions in court, they got it overturned.

Answer 6

NASCAR is stupid and lets companies be official NASCAR sponsors and bans their competition from sponsoring anything unless they were grandfathered in.  Nextel (and now Sprint) allowed Cingular and Altel to stay in but when AT&T bought Cingular they said it was a new sponsor and NASCAR made them take it off the 31 car.  They came to a temporary solution but once again are gone after this year.

They had the same problem with Shell/Pennzoil on the 29 car and Sync this year.

Considering that good cars are having problems getting sponsorship these days I would say its a bad call to kick out companies that want in.

Answer 7

Phone wars.

Patrick Carpentier should be sponsored by NET-10

Get it? the #10

Answer 8

He was sponsored by Cingular/AT&T, but the Cup series sponsor NEXTEL/Sprint wanted all other mobile communication's companies out of NASCAR. Thus AT&T and Alltel will be leaving at the end of the season. The reason the logo wasn't on the car last year was because Sprint, want ed AT&T, one of it's biggest competitor's, out of NASCAR. Thus the matter was resolved between Sprint and NASCAR and let AT&T and Alltel finish out there contracts before leaving..

Answer 9

Nascar would not let the #31 run the AT&T colors because it clashed with Sprint/Nextel but RCR won a lawsuit to get it put on the car.

Answer 10

Yea, RCR did have problems last season. The story was Cingular was bought out by AT&T, and as a result they began to phase out the Cingular name, which of course included their Cup sponsorship of Jeff Burton's #31. NASCAR though had a problem with that as Sprint NEXTEL took over as sponsor by that time and had 'grandfathered'* alltel & Cingular as they were already sponsoring the #12 & #31 respectively, but as the Cingular name was being changed to AT&T that breached that contract.

As all have to, RCR submitted the new AT&T paint scheme to NASCAR for approval but they denied it. Eventually through court rulings in favor of AT&T & RCR they were allowed to replace the Cingular logos for AT&T ones but then through an appeal NASCAR won the right to have them removed (which was through the Bristol race). By the time they reached Richmond however NASCAR & AT&T came to an agreement. AT&T would be allowed to run their decals on the #31 for the remainder of 2007 & 2008 but would have to leave by the end of the 2008 season. They agreed & all was solved.

CAT is moving from the #22 to the #31 to replace AT&T in 2009.

On a side note Verizon recently started buying out alltel (Ryan Newman's current sponsor) but it seems like they are pulling out at the end of this season, either that or the buyout would not affect the alltel name until the end of 2009. I don't expect alltel to get any leniency as AT&T did.  

Answer 11

There was a dispute about sponsorship between AT&T and Sprint. Burton's car was blank until an agreement was reached if I remember correctly.