NEXTEL & AT and T (Bruce's Opinion)

When all is said and done, with NEXTEL having paid large amounts of money for being the exclusive official sponsor of NASCAR events, AT & T should know, as they came into this, that they would be facing an uphill battle, if any at all would be allowed, being that NEXTEL apprised all parties, companies & teams concerned how this was going to play out for everyone concerning name changes.

So AT & T may be just going for the publicity, or they may have something up their sleeve to get what they want. Heck, NEXTEL is changing it's name to SPRINT via a merger, so are there clauses about that in the sponsorship contracts?

But the bottom line for me is that we all know who the official sponsor of NASCAR is, and I don't see the other wireless sponsors impacting that status in my eyes, while NEXTEL's exclusivity is harming the race teams by limiting who they can have for sponsors, in a sport where it can be difficult to get quality sponsors that can support the race teams at the level of funding they need so they can be competitive.

Additionally, competitive sponsors are good for the sport / industry. Albeit, Budweiser, Miller & Coors seem to be doing ok with their respective presences on the track.

NEXTEL, let AT &T in. We still know who the big guns are supporting our sport.