12-02-2015, 16:19
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117663
Formula 1 team title sponsors are history - McLaren's Ron Dennis
By Jonathan Noble Thursday, February 12th 2015, 11:26 GMT
Ron Dennis
McLaren chairman Ron Dennis says he would rather be without a title sponsor than undersell the space on his team's Formula 1 car.
The Woking-based team has been without a title partner since its Vodafone deal ended in 2013, despite having famously declared that one would be revealed on December 2 that year.
Dennis now believes that the costs of competing are so high that handing over title sponsorship rights is no longer possible without selling it off too cheaply.
"Title sponsorship doesn't exist any more as a concept," said Dennis. "If you look at what title sponsorship would normally be, it would be somewhere between 40-50 per cent of your budget.
"Where the budgets are for a competitive team, no company will come in and give you that kind of money.
"Therefore what you do is you cut it up into bite-sized pieces, so you get a range of companies with similar philosophies to join you on the car.
"Do we have room for bigger brands on our cars? Yes we do. But the reality is that we put ourselves in a position where the technology side of our business is providing different dynamics [of revenue]."
When asked if he had then given up on chasing a new title sponsor, Dennis said: "We haven't given up on the idea of attracting larger sums of money to our car, but what we don't want to do is put big brand names on at low levels of money.
"I feel a bit like Manchester United, which has had a run of crappy football games and gone down in the league. I still think we are Man Utd, I still think that we can come along and say 'will you sponsor us? We are still Man Utd'.
"The last thing you should do is suddenly start doing deals that are last place in the league table. That is maybe flawed, but I don't think so. That is the way I think."
Formula 1 team title sponsors are history - McLaren's Ron Dennis
By Jonathan Noble Thursday, February 12th 2015, 11:26 GMT
Ron Dennis
McLaren chairman Ron Dennis says he would rather be without a title sponsor than undersell the space on his team's Formula 1 car.
The Woking-based team has been without a title partner since its Vodafone deal ended in 2013, despite having famously declared that one would be revealed on December 2 that year.
Dennis now believes that the costs of competing are so high that handing over title sponsorship rights is no longer possible without selling it off too cheaply.
"Title sponsorship doesn't exist any more as a concept," said Dennis. "If you look at what title sponsorship would normally be, it would be somewhere between 40-50 per cent of your budget.
"Where the budgets are for a competitive team, no company will come in and give you that kind of money.
"Therefore what you do is you cut it up into bite-sized pieces, so you get a range of companies with similar philosophies to join you on the car.
"Do we have room for bigger brands on our cars? Yes we do. But the reality is that we put ourselves in a position where the technology side of our business is providing different dynamics [of revenue]."
When asked if he had then given up on chasing a new title sponsor, Dennis said: "We haven't given up on the idea of attracting larger sums of money to our car, but what we don't want to do is put big brand names on at low levels of money.
"I feel a bit like Manchester United, which has had a run of crappy football games and gone down in the league. I still think we are Man Utd, I still think that we can come along and say 'will you sponsor us? We are still Man Utd'.
"The last thing you should do is suddenly start doing deals that are last place in the league table. That is maybe flawed, but I don't think so. That is the way I think."
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