NASCAR: Monster Energy named premier sponsor

Monster Energy has reached a multi-year agreement to become NASCAR's premier series and annual all-star race sponsor.

“They made us feel very comfortable over time,” NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France said. “Motorsports is their DNA, and when you walk through their lobby in California you see that; you see the motorcycles and NASCAR memorabilia and all kinds of things. That’s who they are. They understand motorsports, they understand NASCAR, they understand how to reach across and excite our core audience and help us deliver on a new audience, and that was very exciting for us."

The length and terms of the deal were not disclosed. The exact name of the series is still being discussed.

Monster Energy chief marketing officer Mark Hall said that a decade of athlete partnerships and team sponsorship had prepared "what can only be described as a non-traditional marketing company" for a sponsorship of this magnitude.

We’ve been in NASCAR for a while," Hall said. “It’s been nine or 10 years since Robby Gordon was our first foray. It was a great day for me when Robby threw his helmet at some guy, because that was the only time he ever got [the helmet] on camera. I actually called him and said, ‘Robby, can you do that some more?’

"We started in a small way. We learned how to do it correctly and how to make it work in our way, and we ended up as either the principal sponsor or a primary team sponsor, like in MotoGP. To me this isn’t unusual; it’s a logical extension of what we started, and we’re fortunate that this opportunity came around and NASCAR considered us and we were able to get the deal done."

Monster Energy, which will begin its tenure as naming rights partner on Jan. 1, 2017 and become NASCAR's official energy drink, will become only the third company to serve as the entitlement sponsor in NASCAR premier series history, following RJ Reynolds and Sprint/Nextel.

Sprint, which inherited NASCAR's sponsorship when it merged with Nextel, decided in December 2014 that it would end its 13-year sponsorship after 2016.

Monster is tasked with a demographics opportunity: how to market to its younger fan base while engaging NASCAR's traditionally older audience. France admitted Monster's reputation made it an ideal match.

They’re an edgy brand, they’re a fun brand," France said. "They get at a millennial audience in a different way than clearly we’ve ever been associated with, particularly at this level. And they know what they’re doing. And frankly, even Sprint and Nextel before them this was motorsports and a level of commitment - that was all new to them. That took awhile for them to get sorted out, how do you interact with the fan base, how do you activate at the track, how do you do media … they ended up being very good at it, but these guys are ready on day one.

“We’re in the fun business. This is where people come to have fun. … What better brand to have associated with us than the people who understand that? We couldn’t be more excited."