GTPNewsWire
Contributing Writer
- 21,598
- GTPHQ
This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:
This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on April 6th, 2020 in the Esports category.
NASCAR Driver Rage-Quits Esports Event, Loses Real World Sponsor
- Thread starter GTPNewsWire
- 154 comments
- 11,723 views
- 963
- United Kingdom
He needs PR training...
- 6,838
- Europe
- GTP_Slim
- PzR Slim
He's a NASCAR driver. I thought this sort of thing was par for the course and added to the show.
- 2,902
- Columbus, Ohio
Well that's... unexpected. Any other time I'd think it was a cash-strapped sponsor finding a convenient excuse to terminate their contract early, but they have a series partnership with NASCAR so that could hardly be a factor. Plus they were the ones sponsoring his stream, too.
This year just keeps getting weirder and weirder...
This year just keeps getting weirder and weirder...
- 86,802
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
I was not expecting, when I woke up this morning, to be writing about the emu oil (what the hell is emu oil?) based Official Pain Relief Patch of NASCAR supplier withdrawing sponsorship of a Cup Series driver because he rage-quit a sim race, but 2020 is coming up all kinds of ****ing weird.
- 450
- Louisville, Ky
- ZXR-Racer
So did they really fire him with a Meme??? that is even more pathetic than firing him over quitting a video game...
Nascar has been dead (or dying) in my eyes since they went to the "Chase" format, then started lowering their coffin with the "stages"
I kind of hope when this is all over that Nascar stays in E-sports and let real racing like Arca take over the show.
Nascar has been dead (or dying) in my eyes since they went to the "Chase" format, then started lowering their coffin with the "stages"
I kind of hope when this is all over that Nascar stays in E-sports and let real racing like Arca take over the show.
- 63
- United States
He's an idiot. He clearly does not understand the racing business. He thinks it's all about the cars and racing in real life and nothing else. Stupid. It's plain and simple a marketing business. Right now esports is what is attracting eyeballs. You adapt and change or die. If he wants it to be all about the racing and nothing else he needs to pony up the money for his own race team and forget about having sponsors. Course, he don't have the money for that so he better learn quick just how his teams bills are paid. So dumb.
- 115
- United States
- bloodykills750
I'd like to point out that some NASCAR drivers rage quit real life races and did not lose their sponsorship...
- 63
- United States
Would if it made the brand look bad. Again, it's a marketing business and you better please the customer (which is probably more your sponsors than the fans to be honest although you gotta do both).
- 262
- Adelaide
- LilBigHulk
- 582
- Toronto
Was there really anything on the line for this race?
How does a sponsor expect to be taken seriously when they're sending memes to terminate contacts? Wouldn't be surprised if they were going through some financial issues and we're looking for an out.
How does a sponsor expect to be taken seriously when they're sending memes to terminate contacts? Wouldn't be surprised if they were going through some financial issues and we're looking for an out.
opelgt1969
Premium
- 2,235
- Bristol,Va USA
- opelgt1969
I said back when Walace threw the water on a driver that was having issues that Mr. Petty should have fired him on the spot. I'm sure Mrs. Petty was rolling over in her grave. Wake up Richard.
- 86,802
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
Turns out that emu oil itself is just melted emu fat. Which sounds... grim.
Blue-Emu has just become an entitlement sponsor (for the Virginia 500), as well as a series partner for NASCAR and it has been sponsoring RPM (and latterly just the RPM cars) for at least six years as far as I can tell.
DesertPenguin
(Banned)
- 10,691
- Long Island, New York
- DesertPenguin_
- 376
- N/A
- xbox lol haha
I dont exactly know what happened and i dont watch these "esports" races to fill the gap cause of the suspended real races..
But, i can completely understand rage quitting. I sim raced for many many years, way before it was popular. I started with a 80bucks plastic toy wheel and went up all the way to DD wheels. From early "F1 Challenge" games to the recent ones. I stopped 2 years ago because its impossible to have good races in the longt term. You will have 1-2 nice races every now and then but generally speaking its hilarious. And tbh, one of the worst platforms (at least for me) was iRacing. Its absolutely hilarious how bad ppl are although they are paying for it every month. I dont get it seriously.
I sold all of my equipment and stopped doing my hobby just because of the majority of the people.
@Russ Petersen
Exactly not. This "idea" makes and made motorsports a not so much hardcore sport. When i look to the current online or even real life motorsports scene, when i look what commentators hype, what the "mass" hypes, i alwys have a "wtf" face on me.
The hardcore motorsports fans, atleast the F1 ones from 20 years ago, we laughed about everything which is hyped today. Its not about racing anymore exactly like you described but thats not a positive thing, thats actually hurting the sport in general.
But, i can completely understand rage quitting. I sim raced for many many years, way before it was popular. I started with a 80bucks plastic toy wheel and went up all the way to DD wheels. From early "F1 Challenge" games to the recent ones. I stopped 2 years ago because its impossible to have good races in the longt term. You will have 1-2 nice races every now and then but generally speaking its hilarious. And tbh, one of the worst platforms (at least for me) was iRacing. Its absolutely hilarious how bad ppl are although they are paying for it every month. I dont get it seriously.
I sold all of my equipment and stopped doing my hobby just because of the majority of the people.
@Russ Petersen
Exactly not. This "idea" makes and made motorsports a not so much hardcore sport. When i look to the current online or even real life motorsports scene, when i look what commentators hype, what the "mass" hypes, i alwys have a "wtf" face on me.
The hardcore motorsports fans, atleast the F1 ones from 20 years ago, we laughed about everything which is hyped today. Its not about racing anymore exactly like you described but thats not a positive thing, thats actually hurting the sport in general.
- 582
- Toronto
I guess what I'm trying to get at is: what was the loss on Blue Emu's end at the end of the day? Bubba's team let them know they wouldn't be invoiced for that race, so in the end it's a bunch of free press.
I feel like if Lando Norris crashed and rage quitted an esports race, it would get laughs and overall would be treated like a light-hearted moment.
DesertPenguin
(Banned)
- 10,691
- Long Island, New York
- DesertPenguin_
This topic is really showing the true nature of people just based on how they feel about rage quitting. I know I'm gonna get flak for saying this, but there is no excuse for it, especially at the level he was racing. The fact that he wasn't taking it seriously from the start is the biggest alarm bell.
- 86,802
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
Wallace's own stream had Blue Emu's branding pretty much top dead centre, and taking up a LOT of screen area. They got 8% of a race.
Lando does his own thing on his own, unbranded Lando Norris Twitch channel, and always has. He even drove a Mercedes twice yesterday, instead of his own McLaren...
- 582
- Toronto
Fair point. But I would question how seriously Blue Emu was taking this when they're sending memes, and comparing iRacing to Minecraft/ The Sims:
"We thought this was a blessing in disguise for us. But then you find out that you aren’t sponsoring a NASCAR driver, you are sponsoring someone like my 13-year-old son who broke his controller playing some game where he builds houses."
- 725
- Southfield, Detroit
- BroncoFLHX
That’s pretty brutal, but you can aaaaaalmost see the reasoning. If you remove the video game aspect, it makes sense why they would ditch him. He made himself out to be a stuck up guy that has no sportsmanship, but then you add the video game part, and it feels normal. Remove the broadcast aspect, and it’s an insignificant action (pretty mellow for a rage quit, too).
I think everyone is going stir crazy and forgetting what’s actually real anymore.
I think everyone is going stir crazy and forgetting what’s actually real anymore.
- 86,802
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
That's not the Blue Emu CEO comparing iRacing to Minecraft. That's him comparing a supposed professional racing driver's attitude to something going wrong in iRacing (with 1.3m people watching) to a 13-year-old's attitude to something going wrong in Minecraft - as in the driver didn't take it seriously enough and acted like a child.
I'm not overly familiar with NASCAR, but I understand Bubba is a bit of a loose cannon, and his Wikipedia page suggests he's been busted for deliberately crashing in the past too...
DesertPenguin
(Banned)
- 10,691
- Long Island, New York
- DesertPenguin_
That's not a meme, that's a straight up, well deserved insult directed towards the driver. They basically called him immature in much nicer words.
But we don't all have contracts with sponsors to act, behave, and perform a certain way. He failed to do so. Breach of contract. Pretty simple. If it was a random practice session or a non-official race then this would be looked at completely differently. It's being treated the way it is because of the value put on these races.
Equally upsetting was how Lando Norris got a disconnect/game crash and missed the official F1 NotGP. Something like that I could have seen them delaying and letting him back in to start at the rear but it was being broadcast on actual TV with Sky and ESPN so I guess they couldn't really delay and had to fit in the time slot given.
- 582
- Toronto
I'm not very familiar with Nascar myself. But I see parts of the Nascar community dump on sim racing on a regular basis. It just seems ironic that it's now supposed to be taken super seriously.
Correct, that's not a meme, that's a direct quote. I think you misread what I said.
But it's funny how insulting someone is completely justified after rage quitting an exhibition race on iRacing.
Last edited:
- 2,747
- Morgoth_666
Pretty much this. This was a light-hearted, non-super-serious event put on to entertain fans... but it was a very widespread broadcast being done in a professional capacity. It wasn't simply a bunch of dudes getting together for some laughs. It's not like having a poor race was going to actually affect him negatively in some way, so no reason to not soldier on at the back of the field like everybody else that has had wrecks in these races. Hell if later on he had gone back and tried to get some measure of revenge he believed he deserved people would've just laughed about it and called it good TV like Suarez's cranky swing-and-a-miss from last week.
That said, if they were seriously going to terminate their relationship over this(which it seems might indicate it wasn't the first problem) I'm not sure that doing it via snarky twitter posts is the most professionally appropriate manner to do so either.
Similar threads
