NASCAR: The company that should step up and sponsor Brandon Brown

Before the season, NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Brandon Brown again found himself paying for somebody else’s mistake, but it didn’t have to be that way.

For the first time in his NASCAR Xfinity Series career, Brandon Brown is set to enter a race weekend as the reigning winner, having won last October’s race at Talladega Superspeedway.

But that race weekend is one that will be remembered by fans for another reason related to Brown’s win — one that, technically speaking, had nothing to do with the win itself.

Amid offseason chatter of Brown not being able to find a sponsor for the 2022 season thanks to his association with the “Let’s go Brandon” phrase, a phrase that has become synonymous with “F— Joe Biden” because of how it originated after his first career win at the four-turn, 2.66-mile (4.281-kilometer) high-banked oval in Lincoln, Alabama in early October, he and his Brandonbilt Motorsports team found a full-season primary sponsor.

Or so they thought.

The team announced LGBcoin, a cryptocurrency meme coin on the Ethereum blockchain playing off the “Let’s Go Brandon” phrase, as the primary sponsor of the #68 Chevrolet for the entire 33-race season.

Despite the political connection, they were told by NASCAR that they sponsor had been approved. However, this apparently came about as a result of a misunderstanding or oversight, and NASCAR ended up not approving LGBcoin as their sponsor after all.

And once again, many went back to talking about Brown potentially not finding a sponsor, and once again, it wasn’t Brown’s fault.

Fortunately for Brown, he has found multiple partners since then, more than enough to keep the team afloat through the season’s first eight races. With two top 10 finishes, including a season-high eighth place at Richmond Raceway, he sits in 14th in the point standings, just 27 points below the playoff cut line.

But let’s quickly flash back to Saturday, October 2, 2021, and talk about another obvious company that should step up and sponsor Brown’s #68 Chevrolet.

Brown led the 113-lap race when a multi-car crash took place behind him on lap 103; he had been out front since lap 100.

But under the ensuing caution flag period, it was ruled that the race would have to be called due to darkness. On lap 107, Brown took the checkered flag, making him a first-time Xfinity Series race winner in his 114th career start.

As he was being interviewed on the frontstretch after securing his win, a “F— Joe Biden” chant broke out from the fans in the grandstands.

And that’s when NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast made a remark that ultimately went viral.

“As you can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go Brandon,’” Stavast said.

But as fans could hear quite clearly, that wasn’t what was being chanted. So to mock Stavast for saying what she said, “Let’s go Brandon” became a viral meme that has taken on a political meaning.

And all jokes aside, warranted or not, the only real victim has unfortunately been Brandon Brown himself.

Never has that been more evident than it was in January when, after finally landing a sponsor, that sponsor was not approved by NASCAR because of its “Let’s go Brandon” connection.

And while Brown has indeed landed multiple partners since then, one company should be willing to step up and make sure he doesn’t continue to pay for a mistake he didn’t make down the road, and that company is NBC.

We understand, technically, the whole thing started with the fans chanting “FJB” themselves, not Stavast’s mistake, and that if not for those fans, we wouldn’t be in this position. We all get that.

But let’s look even deeper still: while it may have started here, that chant itself didn’t cause the controversy we’re now seeing.

The anti-JB crowd had been doing this for weeks, months even, at various other sporting events, specifically college football games, leading up to this race.

And at no time were any of those fans incorrectly said to be chanting “Let’s go (insert football player name)” by a reporter before, during or after any games. At no point was anything other than “FJB” a right-wing chant. At no point was there any kind of viral meme.

Unfortunately, Brown became the lone exception, through no fault of his own.

We’re not suggesting that this be some kind of penalty on NBC or that they be forced to “pay for their mistake”. Nothing along those lines; the opposite, in fact.

When LGBcoin was first announced as the primary sponsor of Brown’s #68 Chevrolet for the 2022 season, the optimists saw it as Brown and his team turning a less than ideal situation into an opportunity. Unfortunately, that ultimately wasn’t able to happen due to NASCAR not approving the sponsor.

But this scenario would be just that: an opportunity to make the most out of an unfortunate situation.

Look at all of the networks under the NBCUniversal banner: Bravo, CNBC, E!, MSNBC, NBC, Oxygen, Peacock, SYFY, Telemundo, Universal Kids, Universo, USA. That’s without getting into everything that NBC Sports Group has to offer.

There is literally a ton of potential here, and we can’t forget that we’re talking about a driver who has effectively become one of the sport’s most popular.

Sure, it would be somewhat of a unique situation to have a NASCAR broadcast partner effectively sponsoring an individual driver and team, especially one in one of the lower series, but strange problems call for strange solutions.

Plus, we’ve already seen a Fox Nation-sponsored car in the Cup Series this year — the Daytona 500, in fact, with Landon Cassill behind the wheel of the #77 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports.

Would anybody be willing to execute this one to ensure that the bleeding has stopped for Brown and his team?

In the meantime, Brown has a race to focus on: Saturday’s Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega Superspeedway. Will he defend his surprise October victory at the track? Tune in to Fox at 3:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the race to find out. If you have not taken advantage of the free trials being given to new customers by FuboTV, be sure to do so today!