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FedEx May Drop Denny Hamlin & Joe Gibbs Racing · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:02
  Happy Wednesday morning everybody.
• 0:06
  I woke up this morning and I turned on X and there it was.
• 0:10
  Adam Stern, who works for the Sports Business Journal, is
• 0:15
  reporting that FedEx might be leading Joe Gibbs Racing all
• 0:21
  together with driver Denny Hamlin.
• 0:25
  Now the article is really interesting, but the Herm Raider
• 0:27
  going to be bull a little bit. So FedEx has been with Joe Gibbs
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  Racing for 19 years. FedEx started with Denny Hamlin,
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  Joe Gibbs in 2005. So if I told you, if I if I came
• 0:48
  to you and I said, hey, I'm going to give you $20 million a
• 0:52
  year for 19 years, would you sign the contract?
• 0:59
  Hell yeah. Oh, you know it.
• 1:05
  It's kind of like one of those deals.
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  Oh, my God, that team's going to fail.
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  They're going to close race fans.
• 1:14
  This is merely things that we say, right?
• 1:19
  It's no different than when you lose your job.
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  So when, when somebody loses their job, they don't, you know,
• 1:26
  go and live under a cardboard box, under, under an overpass,
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  under a highway. No, if you lose your job or your
• 1:34
  company shuts down, you dust yourself off and you, you go at
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  it, you, you find somebody to help you out.
• 1:44
  So let's talk about this dynamic for a minute.
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  When I say dynamic, I mean this whole Joe Gibbs deal, right?
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  FedEx, the guy that ran FedEx forever was, was real good
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  friends of Joe Gibbs because Joe Gibbs was, you know, Super Bowl
• 2:02
  winning coach with, you know, the Washington Redskins.
• 2:08
  And now they call him the Commanders.
• 2:10
  By the way, that's another subject.
• 2:13
  How come the Kansas City Chiefs can be called the Kansas City
• 2:16
  Chiefs Respond right here. I guess the word Redskins is not
• 2:21
  a a good name. I think it's a bad ass name.
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  So anyway, Joe Gibbs, a lot of his arrangements, Joe Gibbs was
• 2:29
  real good friends with Interstate Batteries.
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  Joe Gibbs was real good friends with the man that ran FedEx.
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  So a lot of these sponsors are great relationships with Joe
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  Gibbs Racing. People say to me all the time,
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  Herman, where'd you get all your sponsors?
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  I said, well, I, I networked, I ran my mouth.
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  I'm good with people. We have fun.
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  So same with Joe Gibbs. Now, if Joe Gibbs loses FedEx,
• 3:01
  of course, everybody likes to go to the worst.
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  Oh, that's it. I, I can hear people right now.
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  That's it. Joe Gibbs is failing.
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  But no, they're not. They, they, they, they knew it
• 3:14
  was coming. They knew it was coming because
• 3:16
  here's why FedEx has been cutting back since, well, for a
• 3:21
  long time, FedEx has been, you know, if you notice FedEx has
• 3:26
  not been on Demi Hamlin's car all the time.
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  So, So what I read was FedEx had to reduce their budget like
• 3:34
  something like $5 billion, some crazy number, but the stock,
• 3:41
  they've been doing good in the stock market.
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  So I think FedEx just got business issues and and that is
• 3:50
  not Joe Gibbs fault. So let's put it another way be
• 3:55
  before we panic. The the reason I'm doing this,
• 3:59
  the reason I'm talking about this is because I can I can hear
• 4:02
  it now. So I'm going to beat it off at
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  the path. When you lose a sponsor, it's
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  not because you're not doing good.
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  Actually, when Denny Hamlin won 3 Daytona, 5 hundreds, in the
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  article it reads that that was massive.
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  This is one of the best sponsor relationships ever in NASCAR
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  history. You can win every race and
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  they're still going to go well, we, you know it.
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  But I will say this, they, they Joe Gibbs Racing has taken some
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  big hits because Joe Gibbs Racing has had the biggest
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  sponsors in NASCAR history. You say who M&MSM&M's man that
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  that was a big ass sponsor lost them, but it's only because they
• 4:50
  wanted to change courses. Looks like they're going to lose
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  FedEx. Well, they wanted to change
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  courses, but I will say this on every one of those sponsors,
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  they had them a long time. So one thing that the article
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  reads that I like Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment
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  invested in Joe Gibbs Racing in 2023.
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  Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment invested in Joe
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  Gibbs in 2023. Don't kid yourself.
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  Don't kid yourself. All these big Cup teams are huge
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  businesses. Remember, Richard Schuler's
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  Racing has a partner. Jack Roush has a partner.
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  Joe Gibbs has a partner. There's a lot of money in this
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  sport. So don't don't get too high on
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  your horse that Joe Gibbs Racing going to fail.
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  They're not going to fail. But respond right here.
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  What sponsor? Who now you see that Maverick
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  tire on Denny Hamlin's car right now.
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  So if FedEx leaves, here we go again.
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  All these Cup teams. I'll leave you with this, my
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  dear friend Ed Laucas, who's in charge of marketing at Toyota,
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  He said to me, now Ed retired, Ed Laucas retired.
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  He said it really hurts the sport when the car is a
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  different color and different sponsor every week.
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  Very hard to get that brand loyalty out there.
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  However, NASCAR is the place to do it because they on NASCAR is
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  on national TV every single week and as as bad as some people
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  like to talk bad about NASCAR, it is the second biggest sport
• 6:51
  in America. NF LS 1st and NASCAR second.
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  Look it up. It is the largest spectator
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  sport in America because NFL stadiums only see 6070 thousand
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  people. So all these NASCAR tracks, you
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  know, Daytona 500 sold out at a hundred 100,000.
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  So I once asked, you know, you look at NBC and it's like, hey,
• 7:19
  NBC, why did you get into NASCAR?
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  And they said, well, that's simple.
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  It's the largest spectator sport in America.
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  So a little long winded this morning, but I never repeated
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  myself. And that's a look inside the
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  business world and NASCAR. The biggest thing I want you to
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  take away from this is this. Joe Gibbs has had the longest
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  running biggest sponsors in NASCAR.
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  I think you got to go back to STPSTP is the racer's edge.
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  They were with, they were with Richard Petty forever.
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  But once again, if I told you now I'm repeating myself, if I
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  told you FedEx going to be with you 19 years, would you take
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  that sponsor you Damn right you would.
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  So expect Joe Gibbs Racing and their partners Harris Blitzer
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  Sports Entertainment, invested with Joe Gibbs in 2023.
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  They'll be all right, as brother Rusty said.
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  Well, we just got to go find more money.