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From what I hear, Coca-Cola was not considered to be sufficiently upscale for a series which wanted to market itself as being followed by people who actually drove Porsches and Audis and BMW and Astons and Vettes. Because obviously those people don't drink Coke, right?
And so the series got Mikimoto pearls or whatever. That sure helped.
At the time (circa 2004?) if Coke had offered a little too little, it would have been a lot more than anyone else was offering. It's old news; the series wants $7-10 million for the presenting sponsor, but the potential presenting sponsor wants to pay $3-5 million ...
The series is afraid to devalue itself ("If we take this offer we can never ask for $10 million") so the series gets no sponsor, and eventually goes bankrupt or nearly so. What was a presenting sponsorship worht in 2009 when Mikimoto signed on? In 2012 or whatever when Yancey's came on board?
Seems a good negotiator would have said "We'll take what you offer for a two-year deal and then we will have to renegotiate," counting on the series to work its butt off to pump itself up while it had a sponsorship budget, so that it had some extra bargaining power for round two.
Instead, ALMS had about zero advertising budget through its peak years, yet couldn't understand why people weren't finding out about the series. (Word of mouth is excellent for a restaurant or a mechanic; a national sports series needs a TV campaign.)
But from what I heard, it wasn't just money--it was Coke's everyman ad image. ALMS wanted to be Exclusive, not inclusive---so it excluded itself from the market and excluded its potential fan base from participating. The Racing Series of the Elite ... Like Porsche and Audi wouldn't have brought there cars to the track if Cocal-Cola sponsored the series.
It was an interesting ad strategy, one that had not been tried before in autosport ... sort of imitating golf. Thing is, millions upon millions of people play golf, or want to. Whoops.
The series should have been smart enough to realize A.) the reach out to the Rich strategy wasn't generating enough income to keep the series alive and B.) Even rich people might drink a Coke or a Budweiser now and then ... but the number of people who buy Mikimoto pearls and also love sports car racing ... it's a Venn diagram with a an infinitesimal overlap.
As for Yancey's Fancies ... Apparently they did about Nothing for ALMS, because the series dies shortly after the contract was signed. Negotiations to sell the series and sign a sponsor must have been simultaneous.
Point is, Yancey's Fancies was pointless. Something needed to be done back when the series was offering the absolute best sportscar racing on the planet---That was a worthy product. Maybe the staff had its hands tied by upper management and its "vision," or maybe they were all on board and just blew it.
Whatever ... I don't see where listing experience in any sort of front office position in the ALMS strengthens a resumé.
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