Full article here : http://mediasharx.com/index.php/columns/2594

"The NASCAR fans don’t get angry, or frustrated, and they never have to worry whether their favorite will be back next year...." I’m starting to think so. First of all, forget all the chewin’-tobacco-and-Stars-and-Bars garbage. (Come on, shouldn’t scifi fans be the first ones to discard silly stereotypes, anyway, or is the number of STAR TREK films out there really higher than the number of dates you’ve had in your life?) More important than that, maybe we ought to take a lesson from Vicky Quinn. She’s a fan of race driver Jimmie Johnson, and when she bought new wallpaper, she deliberately went to Lowe’s-not Home Depot-specifically because Lowe’s sponsors Johnson’s racing career.

And she’s not alone. NASCAR fans as a general lot apparently are highly brand-loyal people. "The fans recognize that without the sponsors, there would be no sport," Aron Levin, a Northern Kentucky University professor who has conducted studies on the brand loyalty of NASCAR fans, told a reporter. "They accept the commercialization of NASCAR, where with other sports it’s sort of on the side.

"You might have a game sponsored by somebody or a stadium with a corporate name, but you don’t have a whole team sponsored. It’s not the Chevrolet New England Patriots the way you have it with NASCAR, where it’s Jeff Gordon and the DuPont car."

Now, quick, name more than one company who advertised on last week’s episode of ENTERPRISE or ANDROMEDA. Can you name even one? I’m not even sure I could definitively identify even one advertiser that bought time on ANGEL all last season. Heck, I usually watch the shows on tape just so that I can fast forward through the commercials. I intentionally go out of my way not to pay attention to all that. Why should I?

Maybe to keep my bloody favorite shows on the air, that’s why.

NASCAR fans reward the companies that keep their beloved hobby afloat on this sea of commercialism and capitalism that is the Western world, and in turn, those same companies keep coming back and ponying up the big bucks.

Have you heard that Nextel is sinking $700 million-that’s right $700 million, with two zeroes-to sponsor a bunch of people who make their living driving around a strip of concrete for a couple of hours?

It’s true. That’s serious cash, people-more than enough to catch Quark’s attention-and it’s all about brand loyalty.

"When you look at the telecommunications industry, you see companies that look a lot alike to the customer," industry analyst Jeff Kagan told a reporter. "They have difficulty differentiating, and customers are starting to make choices based on softer issues.

"It’s like walking into a grocery store and seeing 100 brands of detergents lined up on the shelves, all of which do relatively the same job in getting your laundry clean. There’s an emotional connection that comes when a customer sees a particular brand."

Nextel wants to build loyalty to its brand of cell phone service in the most fertile place it can, and NASCAR fans are more than happy to oblige.

What if a company in the same situation could bank on-be as absolutely guaranteed as Nextel seems to be with NASCAR-the brand loyalty of scifi TV fans? We have the same emotional attachment to our favorite shows as they do to their drivers. If only we would cash in on our emotional attachment.

That’s right, cash in-make the whole thing work for us. That $700 million could buy one heck of a lot of episodes of ANGEL, or ENTERPRISE, or FARSCAPE, or any of the other series we’ve loved over the years that have faced the chopping block, or come close.

You still think you’re too cool? You couldn’t possibly base your buying decisions on who’s buying time on SMALLVILLE or STARGATE SG-1? Well, every year we scifi fans end up angry and frustrated, filling Internet petitions with tens of thousands of signatures, mailing hundreds of postcards and transmitting reams of faxes. In the end, we can only hope and wonder whether it will all be enough to save our favorite show.

The NASCAR fans don’t get angry, or frustrated, and they never have to worry whether their favorite will be back next year. They just buy the right kind of soda pop and sleep well at night.