ISC Says More Sponsor Inventory Available Than Past Years Due To Shorter Contracts

NASCAR race track operator, International Speedway Corporation, today reported that its fourth-quarter net income came in above expecations at approximately $26.5 million on quarterly sales of $191.9 million. Despite the positive results, company executives say ISC has a greater amount of sponsorship inventory available than in previous years and still faces some headwinds due to the economy.

For 2012, ISC has sponsorship agreements in place for approximately 67 percent of its gross marketing partnership revenue target, as comparted to last year at this time when it had approximately 74 percent of its revenue target met. The Company has five of its available 20 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event entitlements either open or not announced and three of its 15 NASCAR Nationwide Series event entitlements either open or not announced. ISC President John Saunders says the company is aggressively working to sell these remaining entitlements.

"Corporate partner support for the industry remains strong. We are seeing pricing stabilize for many of ISC's inventory of assets," said ISC CEO Lesa France Kennedy. "However, as we have noted previously, contract duration for corporate partnerships have been shorter during the economic downturn causing the Company to have a larger inventory of marketing assets to sell going into this season than in prior years. We remain optimistic that we will reach our corporate marketing budget target for the year. We are expecting a strong opening to the season which will assist our sales group in securing the open entitlements as well as other available inventory."

About nine minutes into today's call, ISC President, John Saunders, talks about the company's portfolio of sponsors. Listen below.