Rage Quit, Lose Sponsors
A serious precedence has been set in the US with NASCAR Cup Series driver Bubba Wallace losing his sponsor “Blu Emu” after he parked the car and quit an invitational iRacing event.
The eNASCAR Pro Invitational has been a great success story for not only iRacing but Fox Sports in the US too. With the current global situation halting all motorsports, iRacing teamed up with NASCAR and the US sporting broadcaster FOX Sports, to produce a quality, professional virtual racing league, to basically take over while we all quarantine at home.
The invitational series has seen record numbers for a televised esports event and possibly even attracted new fans and sponsors to the popularity, skill and excitement, that simracing can offer.
Bubba Wallace was also taking advantage of the opportunity, as he began to stream his invitational events, with his newly acquired rig and setup.Blu Emu also continued thier support of the stock car driver and had thier logo prominetly displayed on his stream. Bubba get’s to race and Blu Emu pay him to do that, a pretty good deal, an even better one with the global crisis ongoing.
That deal didn’t last long, 11 laps into the event and Bubba has a small tangle with Clint Bowyer, a driver commentator. Bubba then and on his live stream says “Ya’ll have a good one” parks the car, quits then yells “This is why i don’t take this shit seriously” and ends the stream.
It would seem that Blu Emu does and would like to see their drivers actually participate in the race, as they promptly pulled their sponsorship of Bubba Wallace.
