The Dale Jr. Download - 459 - Dale Jr.'s Impact on the NASCAR Souvenir Business - The Business of Motorsports Part IIII

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

As Kelley Earnhardt Miller’s conversation with Joe Mattes continues, she and co-host Mike Davis ask him about his time spent between Earnhardt-related companies, where he ended up working for the NASCAR.com superstore. When the time came for Dale Jr. to leave Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2007, Kelley knew she wanted to work with Joe on setting up the branding and marketing for the new endeavor. Joe highlights how he came to work at JR Motorsports and the planning that went behind the announcement of Dale Jr.’s departure from DEI.The conversation covers what was considered one of the best-kept secrets in NASCAR history, as many merchandise vendors were involved but the news of Dale Jr.’s team switch somehow remained sealed. The 2007 announcement and merchandise campaign would go on to be one of the biggest retail successes in auto racing history, and ultimately it was carried out by a handful of people. The interview also gives insight into some of the most memorable Earnhardt-related merchandising and how it all came to be. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Welcome to the Dell Jr. Download. It is yours truly, Kelly Earnhardt Miller. This is actually a little bit different segment. The Business of Vodersports. This is something that I've wanted to do with you for a long time. Do business-related podcasts. Do business-related episodes.

Open chats, right? Open chats about the business concerns of our industry, which there are many. Hope this series opens people up to the broader, bigger picture. Okay, welcome back to the Bojangles Studio. I'm Kelly Miller, and I'm here with our Business of Motorsports series. And excited today for Part 2. We had a great conversation with Joe Mattis.

In part one of this episode, we knew that we probably would need more time. We did need more time. And so lucky for you guys and lucky for us. We're here for a second part of this conversation and super excited about it. So yeah, let's jump in. Let's jump in with our ally guest today. Again, Mr. Joe Mattis. Thank you, Joe, for coming to the Bojangles studio.

Usually we don't have somebody come back twice in a row, but you were so good the first time. Walked downstairs. Yeah, well, Kelly, as a quick recapper, this guy has a huge history in the game and with your dad. and you, you were an employee for Joe. He hired you. Wow. The boom of the licensing industry is what we talked about in the last episode. And Joe was such an integral part to it.

But then where we left off, I believe, was Joe and your dad parted ways. Joe didn't take it personal the first time. He did the second time. He started running. I didn't know that about Joe. No. Like running like Forrest Gump running, folks. Who knew that?

Right. And then Joe is going to end up going to the NASCAR.com superstore, which, by the way, was also massive. So that's where we left off, right? Yeah. Yeah. So let's jump in. Just a fascinating story. I learned a lot in part one myself.

I mean, I was alongside a lot of it working for you. So it was really fascinating. So I'm ready to jump in. This section, this part two, I'm going to know all too well. and the tables get turned and I get to hire Joe Mattis, which is really cool. So yeah, so we super store at ascart.com for about six, seven years there. And I was trying to think as we ended the first episode and went home and slept on it kind of thing, about I have a terrible memory remembering stuff.

So I want you to talk about the introduction of me calling you, me getting in touch with you, And I'll set this up. We were, you know, embarking on a change from Dellenharn Incorporated. Delandharn Incorporated handled every business opportunity for Dale Jr. So whether it was a personal service endorsement, whether it was licensing, whatever it was, all those things were handled by the folks that Dill &Huncorporated. I had came to work for Dail in 2001, August. I just did what I could to facilitate some of those relationships.

and go back and forth with the folks at DEI, but it was more difficult and more difficult and, you know, the stories out there of the struggles that we shared there at Delin-Harn Incorporated, and then our decision to change teams. And so as we were thinking about this through 2000, really, you know, through 2006 and really executing the strategy in 2007,

you know, I knew when we made the decision to switch teams that junior motorsports, as Dale's management company wanted to handle all things related to Dale. We did not want those things in the hands of the team. And it was typical depending on the way people did it, right? Jeff Gordon handled a lot of his own things, but then you had Dell & Hart Incorporated who handled all those things for the drivers, so whether it was the PSAs and licensing and so.

So I wrote a three-page document during that time period of all the things I wanted to control as it related to Dale moving into a new role with a new team. and licensing was still a really part of big part of our business. And so Joe was the first and only person on my radar from that standpoint. So I'm letting you take it from here. No. So I'm working with Turner Sports. And I'm working in Concord and I have this little office and I have assigned world headquarters and I'm having fun.

And it was a good job. It was a fun job. And Kelly calls me and it was fall. It was like August of 06. She said, how are you doing, Madison? Hello, Kelly, but it's not like we talk. Yeah, we didn't keep in touch, right? She said, I'm looking for a person, vice president of license in.

Possibly considering this, do you know anyone? I said, if I think of anyone, I'll get back to you. And I really didn't. And then you called me again, hey, have you had time to think about this? And do you got anything? And I'm like, no, I'm happy. I'm really happy with Turner Sports. And you kind of already had this conversation with One Earnhardt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. That didn't go too well. Yeah, yeah. You kind of put a bumper on me the last call, and she says, Mattis, I'm talking about you. And you were sick. Yes, I was sick. I went to the hospital for the interview. You did.

So we talked about that in the intro of the first episode. So I was in the midst, you know, the end of 2007, Tony Jr. and Dale and I were running around to, you know, Gibbs racing and RCR and Hendrick Motorsports and having these conversations. And I was having a lot of back pain and trouble and whatnot. And so one night after, I think it was after we left Hendrick Motorsports, I dropped Tony Jr. off at his home in Mooresville. And I just doubled over. And I called my family and was like, I'm going to the hospital, meet me there. So that was sometime in December because I ended up in the, or January, I ended up in the hospital in January. They thought that I had some sort of cyst on my pancreas. We ended

up come March, I was in the hospital getting a tumor removed. Thank goodness it was non-cancerous. But I remember, and I said, Presbyterian Hospital, Joe Mattis came to meet me down there. I mean, we were having to rock and roll. I couldn't stop, you know. We were moving. So we go and she gives the philosophy and I'm good with it. And I just want insurance, which I didn't care where they're going. Are you for sure leaving DEI? Yeah. And that's the only thing I really cared about because I don't want to go back into it. again. So, Kelly.

If they were not leaving DEI, you were going to say not interested. Turner sports was good. Absolutely. I don't buy me there. Yeah. And so she said, yeah, we're ready to go. And here's the plan. And we want to go now.

And I said, well, I got to give some notice. And I was under contract with Turner. And there were good people. And I went and talked to them. And I had to give extended lead time because I was running NASCAR.com. And then it was $28 million. and we were rock and rolling. And it was really just myself and another guy.

GSI Fanatics now ran the business at King Prush, but we managed it at a Concord. And it's kicking off the season, so I had to just give him proper time. But then I came here in April. And I needed him for proper time as well, right? So we had to set up licensing for the 2008 year. Yeah.

And stop real quick. How big is the $28 million? Like give us an idea of how big the $28 million. Dale Jr. business is at this point in the merch game. Like, I need to know what she's asking you to do and what the implications of it, even leaving nascar.com, would be from Adel Jr. standpoint. Does that make sense? It's easily, easily 40% of the entire $100 million universe every bit of it. So she's not asking you to come up and try to start up a license. No, I know. You have got the, she's asking you to come run the licensing of the biggest piece of that.

28 million that you have. Well, that's just e-commerce for me. Oh, that's right. That's the only bucket. Dale's whole bucket. Later, we'll talk about how we got there, and the number we did is phenomenal. And so I came here, April 1.

I still worked at Turner until June 30th. I just moved to World Headquarters up to my office where I am. So all along, I'm running NASCAR.com, and we're planning, preparing. And to make this announcement, and Kelly's getting closer and then you decide on Mr. Hendrick and, you know, decide on AMP and National Guard. And then we start planning.

And I'm literally going out. And the more planning I'm doing here to get Dale Jr.'s big announcement ready, it's helping NASCAR.com. Yeah, absolutely. It's going to be their biggest day ever, too as well. It's going to be everyone's biggest day. So we were really, really ahead of the game. I mean, and Hendrick had the paint schemes and the sponsors were ahead of the game.

and when we announced, was it September, you announced it? Yeah. Or when was it? We announced in May that we were leaving. Yeah. And then I thought it was late June that we, about a month later, that we announced that. And then in August is when we announced to the world the sponsors to everything. Like in June, we didn't have the sponsorship lined up and all that at that point.

That's right. And to be clear, I mean, we kind of go through this timeline pretty quickly. but the fact of the matter is, because this also was my first year with you guys. So Joe and I came at about the same time. But we did announce that we were leaving DEI. I want to say April, May. And that was a, I mean, that had ripple effects all over the place, right? That was huge news.

We did the press conference right here at Junior Motorsports. The next month and a half, we were basically secret about the conversations. We knew that the only real meaning. meaningful conversations were happening with Rick Hendrick. You and Dale went to Joe Gibbs. Those stories are well documented. Everybody assumes he's going to go to RCR. But then I remember in the weeks leading up, and Joe, this is going to come back to you here.

Nobody knew where we were going. In fact, I remember Jeff Hammond saying on the Fox pre-race show, like the week before, or maybe a few days before we were going to announce where Dale was going, they had him going to Gibbs with like Visa or MasterCard or something as a sponsor. And we kind of chuckled about that. And then another report came out, I think, either through Yahoo or something, where it says, no, no, Dale Jr. is going to start his own cup team. And Martin Truex is coming over here to run with Dell.

And so all these reports were coming out just hours and days before our announcement. So it was well preserved. My point on this would be you're having to, I guess, Joe, my question to you is, did you know where Dale was going at that point? I mean, Kelly kept me up to speed, and where we can, we gather as much information. No one going to Hendricks good, knowing this 88. You can build licensing programs around that, and then you add in the sponsor. So we were building, and we were preparing for the breadth of product to go out when we made the announcement.

I can't imagine exactly when I knew, but it was timing enough because we went and here in Concord, I burned screens, and everyone wanted to know where he's going. And I had people printing all over different places of country. And that morning, that night, I FedExed out. And I just said, get your presses ready. Have a green shirt, have a white shirt, black shirt. I'll be sending you screens for these in the morning. And they said, what is it?

I said, you'll get them in the morning. I mean, we didn't want anyone to know about it. And when they got there in the morning, the announcement's coming at 9 or 10. they open up the box and they start printing because we wanted to immediately ship as many places. The goal was, and it goes back to our philosophy, we cast a real wide net to every e-commerce partner, every retailer that wanted the product. It was built up, and certainly back to you, who's number one, Dale Jr. was number one. So the demand was there.

Now, we had to worry about that number eight Budweiser, too, because it wasn't just building to a normal. Oh, that's right. He's got to finish the season. No racing. And you end up paying Budweiser a quarter million dollars to have the rights to ship product before the end of the year. I mean, so to respectfully, it's Budweiser. Respectfully, you know, you have this contract and you can't just go out. Now, if you go out with the 88 Hendrick, fine, but with the sponsors and all that.

So you look at your forecast and, you know, is it worth the quarter million? It was well worth the quarter million. but you still had negotiated Budweiser and prepay quarter million dollars. Yeah. On the same token with that, you know, just thinking through, thank goodness, you know, the means of information like we have today were not available, you know, not sizable in 2007 and 8 in terms of social media and all of those things. Because in the same breath, we kept so much undercover.

We even had to figure out the number, which number. We worked with Yates, you know, in terms of getting the 88. I mean, you know, it was some very thoughtful conversation, thoughtful discussions and conversations internally on how we transferred everything to the Hendrick Motorsports in preserving the legacy of the car numbers and what we had built from an Earnhardt standpoint, you know. So getting that number, you know, which we ended up. you know, purchasing from the eight. But to your point, everybody up to the last minute had different guesses.

But so much work and all the touch points and there was only a certain amount of people. Licensing there was only a certain amount of people like I trust this with your life. And I went to those because you can't do it on your own. You have to execute a program of that magnitude and truly have shock and awe. You're going to have to trust somebody. I think that's what I want the listener to really understand is that something of this magnitude and you to have a prepared licensing game and a merch ready to go. It is unthinkable that the secret was preserved or the announcement was preserved. I mean, everybody kind of knows that, you know, leaks usually happen when you're sharing paint schemes with a, you know, die cast manufacturer.

So they, you know, that's how Jayski used to always get the announcements and the rumors and things. and I just, something of this scale, people were literally in the dark on and you were the mechanism, the machine that was the merch, the Dale Jr. merch was able to operate under some cloak of secrecy and that one person, some distributor and who knows where, some printer or whatever, one person leaking that out unravels the whole thing. Yeah. Well, the credibility comes back to the 95. when I ran Dale's company and I built rapportes.

And then even all the way through with NASCAR.com Superstore, you built trust. And you know who you can line up on the line of scrimmage with and you don't have to look left or right. And you also know who you don't trust. More importantly, you know your handful, you get past your five fingers, the trust level goes down.

So I had to lean on those partners. And even till today, in April 29, 210, we ran the Wrangler car. Another shock and on. I mean, there's times we've done things that has always been the right way. And when we announce it, the merchandise is there and we're ready to go. But you guys would recall this. there actually was anxiety behind this announcement, certainly leaving DEI. I'm curious if you had the same anxiety that we had because I know that Dale Jr. leaving the family business is, we weren't sure how his fans were going to react to that.

And we certainly didn't know if the reception to him going to Hendrick Motorsports, the team of Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson, basically the evil empire, the ones that we go. fight and race against every week. You know, they're not Dale Jr. They're starch. They're polished. We're jeans and t-shirts. And so was there a concern from the merchandising

industry in your lane of could this backfire? Could all the things that have been built up since 2000 when he was a rookie unraveled just by this announcement? The power of the R and Hart brand and the history,

behind it and the licensees and the retailers, the need to believe, because he's leaving Budweiser and he's leaving Dei, and the need to have Dale still be a vital part of the sport, because without him, it's just a big hole. And I think it was, yeah, I'm sure there's anxiety. I sold it as this is going to be big. I mean, that's my job. I mean, and you better get in line. And if you don't, you're going to miss an opportunity to get healthy. A lot of times the industry goes up and down. And when we did these big things, you're helping the whole industry. Yeah, are we the benefactor of helping people get healthy?

That's okay. You want the industry to be healthy. And we sold it in as we all need this and we all need to work. And if you don't get in front and you don't prepare for it, you don't put your orders in now, you're going to regret it. And the power of that Earnhardt brand, you know, hope's not a strategy. She, hope was a strategy for a lot of people there. But I'm sure there was anxiety. I look back on it.

I mean, I'm like, this is perfect. This is the big juice. This is the big game. And you're just having conversations, and you're lining things up. And every day, you can't wait to go do more. How big is this going to be? And how big it end up being? We went back and we're talking to Kelly up front.

What are our goals and our objectives? who we're going, now that we're taking over, and we are going to, you know, Julie Motorsports Licensing is going to go out and build a better mousetrap and be the leader of the industry. What are some of our goals and what are some of our ambitions? One of them we wrote on the top was we're going to give contracts out and not burden people with guarantees that are unattainable. The whole problem with motorsports authentics and action performances,

they overestimated what they could produce, and they had massive unpaid minimum guarantees. And to try to make payment on them, you just build product hoping someone buys them. Then you have excess inventory. And then you have unpaid guarantees and you lose money on inventory. And your balance sheet looks disastrous.

So goal one was, well, top three was, you know, find partners forecast what's fair and have them build a product and have them get behind it. So when I got done that year, and we get back into the end of the year. In 2008, what was the big hit you asked about after the Olympic car? There was $20 million of guarantees that year. That is phenomenal.

That is, yeah, significant. That was a big, big, and like, think about the people who paid it, and 96% of the money we received was earned. So I didn't hit my 100%, but we were close, so we were fair. It's good to be fair. and everyone had a bite. And if implicitly you take the guarantee, everyone who paid me the guarantee and based on their royalty rate,

that transferred to $270 million in 2008. In retail. In retail. Wow. $270 million. Today. Wow. Today, we sit here in 2023, the entire NASCAR industry,

maybe $100 million. Wow. Yeah. That was the biggest of the big thing. Massive. Let me make sure I'm understanding this right. You're saying that the Dell Jr. announcement, like the 2007 year, and all that came with it,

the new sponsors, Amp, National Guard, the T-shirts, the merch that you created with the new 88, new number, everything at the end in 2008, which would have been Dale Jr.'s first season with Hendrick, when all the financials are coming in the end, and your numbers are, you know, solid, $270 million program at retail and that's from sales on January 1 through December 31st so you're talking trackside e-commerce mass market why retail dotass lionel all the licensees that was the last

of the big hits how did that compare to Dale Earnhardt's 95 uh stuff i mean i i sorry Dale Earnhardt senior he spanked you wow yeah yeah he spanked them yeah that's yeah that's yeah Dale Jr.'s P1. And if you ever tell someone, if you look at it in that, now over the course of life and significance of licensing and sport. Yeah, he might be P2. They're pretty close. I know who P1 and I know who P2 is.

Yeah. What were you thinking, Kelly? This is amazing. I mean, I've never heard that number. You know, I was thinking as you were asking the question of Joe and thinking, you know, one of the very important things that's been really important to Joe throughout his career is that licensing always has a seat at the table in terms of the whole business picture of a race team and a race car driver. And I think what went well is that the thought

process of those of us thinking through what you said, we're leaving the family company, we're not going to RCR, we're going to Hendrick, our nemesis and competitor. All of those things we thought through really well and the timing of those announcements and the timing of how we did things and the stories you know the the storytelling which was factual storytelling you know i mean i you it probably would have never worked had we not had that um personal connection with mr hendrick through our grandfather and through those things right it probably would have not worked um but the fact that we you know were careful in that storytelling i think really and that's what joe needed for licensing to be successful, right?

Exactly. I mean, that's really what you need. You had the napkin contract story. Yeah, exactly. You had the Robert G. Connection. And so that this is as much a family, it's just the maternal side. Exactly.

But it was, I mean, you know, for me, because I had been in the business, I'd seen these things and all of that kind of stuff. I mean, I, you know, pleased as could be. But I think the person that was just blown over was Mr. Hendrick himself. Oh. He had never seen that kind of power in licensing. You remember what he did? to thank us. He calls up, he calls up you and he wants to take the team to dinner and he picks

Monica and Wendy and everyone up in the limo and he takes us, I guess, Capitol Grill and he just wanted to meet the people that were responsible, which is, that's such the character of Mr. Hendrick Because that check, I mean, it's a butter knife. If there's a dollar, Mr. H got 50 cents and Dale got 50 cents. They had never seen that impact, you know, from how licensing impacted the race team and the revenue. And it's a testimonial to a couple of things. There's one thing else I need, and I want to go two points here. I need it time.

And you went out, and you were going out in January of 2007, and you were in my thought, you talked to me in 96 of this, you know, what your concept was in 2007. You know, to do these, 2006, not 96, yeah. To do these things, yeah, it's nice. You still need time. And today we don't, people either make different decisions without time, it doesn't work. Right. And the second thing is, as you went to Mr. Hendricks said, hey, we're willing to do this and that, but we want to control our rights. Well, you just validate it. Why? Yes. That check is why. Oh, that is so interesting that you say that because it just occurs to me, and I know that this is common knowledge, but it's,

it's worth repeating, that was the whole situation at DEI, wasn't it? Dale didn't own his rights. For the longest time, you were the one fighting behind the scenes. It did become public as Dale Jr., you know, started making it public. But Dale didn't have the rights to his own name. So if he had sold just as much inventory as he did at the Hendrick announcement in that 2007, and he doesn't get nearly the number that he gets based off of what he would have deserved. Yeah, and I think, you know, even further to that is that we had a situation at Hendrick Motorsports that we didn't have at Dellenharn Incorporated,

and which was one of, you know, the many reasons that we wanted to move along is just that relationship to be fair, what Joe said, to be fair, to share, to, you know, to enjoy everything. that comes of it together, right? It was very one-sided. And not only if you did work out some kind of mechanism where you had some kind of revenue share, sometimes we didn't ever get paid. You know, we went 12 and 18 months on trying to get paid on things and so on and so forth.

So, you know, it was a totally different situation and you felt appreciated and valued. And I definitely recall Mr. Hendricks, you know, just elation in terms of me. He just could not believe that that was where we was, that that's where we were. Was Mr. Hendrick receptive to that idea of you guys owning that piece of it from the beginning? Like was that even, did that require negotiation? Not at all.

No. Wow. And I, you know, the document that, that I, you know, received help from Stoke Codwell, who Joe mentioned as well, our attorney at the time, you know, we had worked with Stoke through the Dellenhart Incorporated days and then, you know, we sat down and just really win. And like I said, it was three pages of information. It was probably 18 bullet points on there. And Mr. Hendrick laughs because, you know, there were some very serious things on there like controlling our licensing. And then there were some funny things on there like, I need to take

your helicopter to Martinsville, Charlotte, and Darlington, you know, and Mr. Hendrick always laughs about that. He's like, you guys came in there and you had all these things that you wanted to do and then you needed the helicopter like really but you know that was that and and i didn't waver on that that document was sent to the three teams we talked to if you want to speak to us about dale coming to drive here you need to know that this is what we're asking and this is what we're going to be you know requiring as a part of the relationship and it was really never a it was never a negotiation point with with really anybody wow that was fun you what you don't have that kind of leverage these days at all.

We had a lot of leverage. Yeah. I also remember concern over the fact that what happens when you've got the cool factor of Budweiser, which had been so prominent in Dale's brand evolution

from the countdown to E-Day, which was his qualifying for his first race in 99. Budweiser was synonymous with him, and now AMP is a brand-new brand. It is.

Like it's, you know, now Pepsi's getting into the energy drink space. And National Guard, while we all love the military, isn't. It's not too sexy. Well, it's not a retail product. It's not a, and so was there concern, Joe, about that? And because, I mean, I'm sure that even at your NASCAR.com days, the Budweiser relationship to Dale was, was so important. There was major concern.

And I snuck as much mountain-doing as I could to brighten up. So I'd even get in trouble on the trailers, and there was a bunch of trailers. They wanted to see like 45% amp and 45% guard. Guard and 10% due, and I got like 33% due because due sold more. Yeah, there's a lot of concern. But when you're building the brand, the brand is Dale Jr., himself. the brand Dale Jr. and the car owner, Hendrick Motorsports, the brand is Dale and the number 88,

and you look at all your different products and your coffee cup mug. You don't have to put National Guard on it. You can put 88 Dale Jr. on it. You can sell a whole bunch of coffee cups. Now, your apparel, you know, you got to worry about that, your headwear. And once again, you've got to be respectful.

Licensed in is a service industry to that sponsor, and we need and we should put their marks out. So you got to, but the fan base doesn't just want sponsor specific product as well. So you put out the appropriate level of product in all different trinkets, hard goods, Dicast. Now Dicast is the brand. That is National Guard. That is.

So it's a bland and it worked, but there was a lot. Budweiser, yeah, there was a lot of concerns of that. Yeah. I also think that another aspect of that was, though, that, you know, we could not use Budweiser on our mass market product because of kids, right? That's right. So we had to have a die cast or a T-shirt that went into mass market. And it didn't mean it had to be a kid's product, even if it was an adult product, we had to have Dale Jr. on the side and we couldn't have the bud marks. I'm curious how that, you know, I know that from a die-cast perspective, that certainly authenticates it so much more, you know, right?

But I'm curious if the kids sales in general kind of how that was, you know. I can't remember. Yeah, I don't either. I don't either. But that was a positive, you know, from that standpoint because. Bigger reach. Yeah. Yeah.

We just always hated the fact that, you know, things didn't look identical, you know. It wasn't authentic. That's right. You go to, let's just say, you know, Walmart, you're looking at the, like, matchbox size, you know, the 164 die cast. And it does. it's the same scheme, but it says Dale. Yeah. Across the hood.

Yeah, we have this little Dale Jr. Correct. And then they also had to be screwed down to, you know. Yeah, a base. Yeah, a base. Like your, if you had Budweiser on it and it was an adult collectible product. Oh. This car, for example, would have had to been screwed down to a base in order to be sold.

Because that makes it more than a adult. Yeah. Quote, unquote, collectible, not toy. Not a toy. Wow. Yeah. I didn't realize that. And we were out of a lot of categories, too, because of the toy piece of it, you know, because it didn't make sense a lot of times just to.

But you're also at the mercy of someone else licensing your rights. Yeah. So, you know, if you were given an unfair contract, someone could pass or deciding we don't want to be in that. And, you know, Trisa had a heavy hand in everything. Did you maximize your earning potential with her having the ability to say yes or no to everything? No. Right. So the handcuffs are off.

Straight timelines were a problem maximizing things over there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And getting approvals. I mean, simple stuff. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And when I look back and when you say all of that, our partners embraced us because they knew it was a breath of fresh air.

Things are going to be done the right way. It does feel liberating. Yeah. It was. It was. Yeah. You mentioned something, Joe. You're moving $270 million.

How big was your team? wasn't too big. I would say... Here internally, four? Four. Four people and you did that much. No wonder, Rick Hendrick... We all fit in the same limo.

That's why I was wondering. It's like he took him to dinner. What do he do? Did he hire shuttle service? What did you do? No, no, no. You know, because you tell the story, again, you tell the story about in 95, Kelly,

when you're working for Joe at Sports Image, y'all are talking about people crammed in offices. got the parking lots overflowing, you've got trucks just moving in and out. And this team, it seems, you know, I kind of think of it like this big, giant operation that you guys are doing. This isn't, you actually sold more with four plus you is what you're saying. Yeah. Not to count your distribution.

I know there's other people that you are. I was going to say a little bit of the difference in terms that we were having to pick pack and ship. The business model, we were pure licensee. Pure. I mean, pure. We gave other people the rights to produce and to sell. And then we were vertical at Sports Image. Hey, that vertical model was profitable.

I would say you could argue the amount of profits that spun out, but that was a vertical model. And so we had to do everything. It was two different business. This was quite different. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. Right.

So then what happens? So you've met this enormous number and everybody's feeling good. But like on the track, you know, Dale and, you know, Tony, Junior. It's not all roses. He took a while to get his first points win. I know he came out hot at Daytona, but didn't win the Daytona 500. And then he, you know, I think it was Michigan when he finally wins. And then he and Tony Jr. split. And now you're going to have Lance McGrew in 2009. So I'm curious on how the momentum carried over beyond 2008. In your space. In year two, in 09, percentage-wise, we dropped 40 percent, but it's still a big number.

But, you know, but that happens in any announcement. Any, you know, year one, if you do year one right and you do it right, it's going to be the highest watermark. And then there's a natural, I got it. I got the shirt already. Yeah. Carl Larson, Hendrickcars.com. You know, third year, I mean, he could win 18 races.

It just, they got the shirt already. So you have that naturally anyway. And I think that's something that you have to manage. And that's another thing that I, you know, you've considered. consistently said, you know, you, you, you in licensing, and I don't care what it is, you can't and you probably shouldn't have those repeated year over year over year, because you're, you're messing with supply and demand, you know, so you've got to have those moments, but you can't, you know, and Joe says it, you know, we're not going to be able to

recreate this next year. And you've got to be cautious about, you know, the special paint schemes and the special things and all of those kinds of things because you don't want to just keep trying to match those numbers because eventually you just run out, right? You don't sustain the model. No. Right. And the consumers we have have X amount of discretionary income.

Yeah. And, you know, they all indexed and spend $1,500 on Dale Jr. souvenir in year one, they're going to go home and say, hey, that's enough for a while. Yeah. And another cautious thing, you know, that you speak about often is inventory issues, right? So they buy the t-shirt and then, you know, somebody decides to change the paint scheme or change the sponsor or whatever. And then you've got this inventory of what you haven't sold or moved through because somebody, and this is to the point of where you wanted licensing to always be a part of the conversation. It's always, you know, the sponsor says, oh, well, we're going to, you know, introduce this new drink.

And so we want this on the car. And then they don't give you time to make product. they have inventory already in the marketplace, right? And so then you're in this conundrum of, you know, what do you do? Yeah. Because they want a T-shirt there. It's the dirtiest nine-letter word in the English language, inventory. Conundrum?

No, inventory. No. Inventory scares me. But, yeah. It's a process. Yeah. Well, okay. I do want to get to the current state, but first I want to talk about Dells

retirement. Again, Kelly, I mean, we all have our vantage points during that year, two years. I mean, you had the concussion. So what do you both remember in terms of the licensing situation there and the preparation for life after racing for Dale? Well, Joe had a lot of, I mean, Joe, not just with Dale, but has had a lot of, you know, not only during Joe's 10 years. here managing

Dell Junior's licensing. We also then became the manager of Hendrick Motorsports's licensing. So we did Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson and so on and so forth, right? So we were doing a lot of that work for the past many years. In addition to that, Joe talked

in the first episode about SMI and ISC purchasing action performance. Oh, which was Fred Wagonoff. Which was Fred's company. Joe took a nine-month hiatus and went to work literally in the offices at, what did they call the company? Motorsport Authentics, yeah.

Okay. That's a big deal. It's a big deal. So he goes to do that. So my whole point in this is that he had exposure to the Tony Stewart retirements. I mean, he worked with Penske and what they were doing. Like he strategically tried to manage the industry. industry while managing our stuff, but manage the industry so that we were all aligned, even though

people were doing their own things. And so he had exposure to the Jeff Gordon retirement, the Tony Stewart retirement, you know, and so on and so forth. So I think, you know, a conversation about these drivers retiring in general is a big deal. And then especially Dale Jr. Yeah. Right. Yeah. As it relates to licensing. Yeah, I've seen a lot of pitches. I've been, I had a lot of play to appearances. But you go back to Dale's retirement. and you were part of it as well, Kelly, the thought process and the attention to details and the lead time, just as his announcement were done in his retirement. So, you know, we amplified, we embraced an amplified every opportunity in conjunction with the marketing layout,

with the whole plan of how you guys were going to execute his retirement tour. our job was to complement that with licensed product along the way. If he's a certain track and there's a certain tribute to a track, well, we would have an event track merchandise all the way through. So that was, there was a probably, no, so you had that 08, and there's this little thing in 210 when he won in the three car that really helped the industry. Oh, man. So I'm thinking about things that helped the industry.

and then that was really probably the last big lick that helped the industry on that. But it was done the same methodology that 07 did. And you were really part of a lot of that. But you controlled the pace because the storyline and the marketing and how you had, we're going to do this then and that then. My job's come behind you with it. Well, I've got to be honest. It was one of the benefits of really having Hendrick Mosephi.

motor sports as a partner. You know, Jesse Essex was just, I can't even begin to describe how instrumental he was in, in that, you know, that whole team over there, you know, working with Marshall. But, but the, yeah, that we built a tour. We built a marketing campaign around his retirement. Exactly. It was that appreciation tour.

Yeah. Which we felt it was part of the Dale Jr. vibe, right? Like, he's not going to be one of those guys that, you know, wants to go to the receive his gifts, get his moment to shine. He would want to actually generate all that attention back to the people who made it possible for him, which was the fans, right? And so that's what we built on. And I thought it worked, right?

I thought it worked well. And I thought that it gave you also an opportunity to, you know. I love how it ended. So you're going through this and I get an airplane. I go back to QVC. I said, I got to see you. We haven't even talked about QVC. Those were some massive moments.

Because QVC used to be a big part of us. Oh my gosh. Big part of us. Yes. I got on a plane. I went up there. You got to give me the time of day and get Dan and all that. And I went up there and I told them what we're doing.

And I said, yeah, I know you got to hit this and that. I said, but we're going to do two million. You're going to do two million? I said, yeah, man, that's what we're going to do. We'll come down for two million. And they did come down. And it was an exalted student. because Hendrick was, you know, I'm glad you brought up.

That was the first QVC show that we did in forever. Long, long time. I mean, we used to do QVC. I was on QVC selling product back in the 2000s, you know, early 2000. They would do three or four a year, I thought. Yeah. The last one probably was at QVC, I mean, at Whiskey River. Yeah.

That's right. And he got mad at me for a cabbage patch doll. Yeah, that's right. Real sad. I do want to get back to the example. Zalta in the team. But that is such a good point. I can't believe we glossed over the QVC stuff.

We did two or three a year, if I remember this right. I remember doing one out here in the front parking lot of Junior Motors sports. I'm talking a television production with audience. Rows of chairs, people coming in watching a stage, lights, cameras, the whole thing. We would do these QVC shows. Dale Jr. fans listening to this right now remembers them, right? Yes. And so how much, before we get to the fun little thing,

things that would be a little bit of a bump in the road, we'll call it. QBC must have moved a lot of product. Tremendous amount of product. And they did it the right way. They wanted the timing. It's all timing and planning and storylines. And then they would pick the merch and they take their position on a merch and then they just go sell it.

And then you just sit back and watch it. And it's a drug, man. It's like, man, like you're scoring 100 points. Absolutely. We'll watch a little ticker in the corner, you know, as it went up. But now you get to be able to make this merch without getting all the red tape and approvals that came with DEI. But then you run into a situation where Dale Jr. is on stage. And then they go and put up some product that he is seeing for the first time.

Cabin's patched in to make it. He would get upset from time to time about things like that because, you know, we didn't, we approved everything internally and whatnot. And there would be occasions where maybe he didn't like his. face the way it looked on something or it was a quirky product. I remember the, I mean, we even went to the point of making like bathroom accessories, you know, so we had like, you know, your toothbrush holder and your trash can. And I mean, there were some quirky things that he, some he didn't ever know about. And then some things like the cabbage patched off came out.

I bet they sold. But do you know how collectible they are? Yeah, like they were truly collectible. Hey, I took my beating and I laughed and moved on. The one I remember of him really kind of giving us static about was calendars. He's like, nobody uses calendars anymore. Who pins up a calendar? Ain't nobody does a calendar.

We're like they keep selling out. A lot of those garages across America. A lot of those people. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. All right. So that was fun. And so the other thing you mentioned real quick, you did mention, I forgot about this,

the 2010 Wrangler number three. He did run it. We were with the nationwide series, I believe, at the time. time. Yeah. Not the Xfinite series, nationwide series. Dale goes to Daytona

wins the thing. The thing I remember most about this program was that we did the announcement and the unveil out here at junior motor sports. Teresa was here. Yeah. Teresa was here. April 29th on Dale's birthday. Richard was here.

Dale, you, Kelly, and Teresa. And to be honest with you, I don't recall there being much, you know, you know, conversation. Yeah, there were no warm.

It wasn't a family. reunion, so to speak, but it, but I, it was like the last, we were all here. It was really the last time we've been together. Maybe with the exception of your dad's induction into the Hall of Fame, this was like one of the last times that you all were together in, in a meaningful way. And that's even before Dale goes out and wins the dang thing. Yeah. Well, it's Dale's idea.

Kelly came into me, and I was just, yes, please. And, but if Richard Childers didn't get involved. We probably would have made that happen. Yeah. So Richard championed the idea. And he made it happen. Okay, so how much product moved? A lot.

I mean, I don't know. Well, I think we sold like 10,000, 124s ahead of time, and then he goes and wins, and certainly we come back with the race-use version. And that doesn't beat the initial one, and it's crushed. But it was a big deal. No, it beat it. The race-use version. And it was a really big deal.

So, yeah, when I look back on all these buckets and the blurps in the screen, they've always been, you know, good opportunities. Old sun drop late model's not a bad burden. Oh, that's right. We must talk about that. Yeah, no, no. But I mean, I, I, that's still happening. Yeah.

I do remember the strikeouts, too. So it's not just, yeah, there's a lot of strikeouts in between. I want to talk about that too and maybe get into just a couple conversations and maybe some favorite merchandise of stuff. But I think it's also important. And I think this would be interesting to, you know, the fans listening that have been along this journey from a from a souvenir standpoint at the racetrack. Joe was also very involved and aligned and in he's been a part of the changes in the

industry as far as going to from the trackside trailers to the tents to back to the trackside trailers and all. And I think that's a, I think that's just something interesting that people, I mean, I don't think our fans didn't understand that. We didn't understand that. But yeah, you know, those conversations, you were. in the middle of. Yeah, I think if you really go back how the tents came to be.

And what year was this change? 15. 15. So it goes back to what Kelly alluded to, I've seen SMI buying Motorsports Authentics and 09. I went there in the mornings, and we had a right size. It was going sideways because they were paying. All the guarantees.

The guarantees. And Hendrick and Junior Motorsport. a lot of money, and there were the number one licensee, we had to go in, and I went in. Remember, he went in and fixed the, you fixed the California center. Joe's a fixer. So he goes back in when he worked for his dad at the hangar company. So, you know, we got that right size, how to throw $25 million away, a bad inventory you alluded to.

And then. Oh, that, that stings. Yeah. And then, you know, MA, the trust came in 210 trying to do things right, but then the NASCAR Trust. NASCAR Trust. And then Motorsports Authentics, which is, again, owned by IAC and SMI, for four years, they just kind of dealt with this Motorsports Authentics acquisition that truly never worked. So there was a neat, and they were to track site company. And from publicly traded, ISC and SMI and whatever, they wanted to get rid of.

of it. So when you're going to get rid of your track site event, and you had to find someone who's going to take it over. And that's when they went to the tent concept. Do we embrace it? No. But you got a respectful of sanctioned body and their wishes. And it just, it never made sense to me, but we can't fight City Hall. Eventually, you know, you had to agree with it. But I clearly went on record internally, you know, what my forecast was going to be in three years and how they, it wouldn't work. And it didn't work. It didn't work. And our sales were down. Everything was down. The experience with the race fan. The race fan certainly raised their hand and they did not like it. And they wanted to go up to their favorite driver's trailer, shop their driver's merchandise.

The breadth of product was so intense on the, the trackside trailer. It was such a change in this big white tent that and the logistics of them pulling you know logistics in the track side model was was one thing and it was difficult but you're talking about they would um hop tracks and go in and set up the tents and the massiveness you know weeks beforehand to just be prepared then to stock the merchandise and have merchandise at this track and then hop to you know they had these two situations hopping you know each other to make it all work ex ex ex ex inventory you talk about um mobile marketing, when that race is over, in a trailer, you drop it and you go. So you don't need any extra inventory.

Everything's organized, stored. When you have a tent. And that track site trailer is home base. So I'll meet you at the 88 trailer. I'll meet you at the 24 trailer. That is where people gather. So I'll meet you at the white tent. I mean, we play all the way games.

We're not regional and we're not seasonal. And we play all the way games. Right. So you look at the other stick of ball sports. And being at track site for all those years and listening to those fans, I mean, you're going to pull, you know, maybe you're, I get you got to market to the new fan, but you alienated the old fan. Yeah. Way too much. And it just didn't work.

It didn't have a chance of working, in my opinion. And so we went back in 18. Yeah, it was about three years. fanatics start adopting a quasi, some trailers, some tents, and then at the end of 18, they said, Uncle, they want it out. So let me just make sure I'm understanding all this right. You're saying that basically the big tent, we all remember it, the big, you know, the superstore, whatever, at the track, was a byproduct or was a result of an ISC SMI acquisition of Fred Wagonall's company, which was Motorsports Authentics at that time. Well, no, you got to say the storyline because

that acquisition didn't work out. It wasn't financially creative. Maybe not a direct result, but basically there was an acquisition in what year was that? 05. 05. So we're talking about a 10-year span here, for sure. So I'm assuming you acquire the company Motorsports Authentics, if you're ISC and SMI, I would assume you acquire it because that's a, was that a larger chunk of revenue that you

get to keep? I mean, certainly there's a business model that, they think it's going to work. Is there another reason why you would acquire it? Well, I think since the beginning of time, you look at how the NFL, NBA, hockey, baseball is, and versus us. You know, we're independent contractors. The drivers are independent, the teams.

I think NASCAR, I'm guessing at that point in time, by acquiring the largest piece of the business, from a branding standpoint, you really can roll up the rights and being the position. Sure. Be the industry leader. A lot easier to execute your marketing initiatives.

You control the, they control the tracks. They control their sanctioned and body. And now they control licensing. So you got all these assets here. So, you know, in the past, perhaps maybe because they didn't control them, we didn't execute plans as well. But now that you have it, then you should be able to execute it. So, but then to continue my recalibrate.

here so I understand this correctly. I remember you just used the word sideways a few minutes ago. So things were sideways enough to where you needed to come in. They needed you to come in to help write the ship so to speak. I don't know the right way to characterize that, but either way, and then

they end up 10 years after their acquisition in 2015, ISC, SMI, NASCAR, however you want to call it, says we're going to go to this superstore model. You didn't love that idea, but you can only do so much. I mean, I understand that.

And then they adopted. It does not work. How many years? Three years. Three years. It took four to get out. Four years. Four years.

And eventually like what, 2019, we start going back to a trackside trailers with drivers. Yep. So another, so Joe's referenced 52 cards on the table and all face up. Another scenario that we went through in this licensing business was our relationship with Adidas. Oh, yes. And so, you know, one of the things, that was what, 2007 and eight, nine. I mean, 2008, he was an Adidas guy for 2008, nine, maybe even ten.

And so we were working on this, you know, this relationship to, you know, be an Adidas athlete, right? and we had a meeting, I guess we, I don't know how it came to be, but we had a meeting with Mr. Helton, Mike Helton, and was Brian France in the meeting too? I think so. I think he was. We had it here at Junior Motorsports. And the 52 cards on the table thing is important because while we laid out our cards

and said what we were doing, they didn't lay out their cards. And so we left the meeting and we're like, okay, we're moving forward. We know we're going to do this Adidas thing and whatnot. And we announced it. Yes, we did. And we move forward. And, you know, now Dale's an Adidas branded athlete with his driving suit and, you know, this product and all of these things. And we get this phone call.

And the phone call is like, did you not hear us clearly in the meeting? And we're like, no. we didn't and and basically I think that we were supposed to read minds and hand signals and whatnot but we we got our hand slapped because I think we derailed an entire industry solution that they were working on with a competitor of Adidas. Oh yeah what happened yeah you you connect the rest of the dots and so that was a big moment in our licensing life you know it's like a And we went on to do Adidas for a few years and then that, you know, had ran its course.

But, yeah, I think we single-handedly in that decision, you know, derailed something really big that the sport was working on. That had they told us and had they, you know, had we been a part of the decision and had we known, we probably could have, you know, changed course and whatnot. I didn't even know that. That's just, that's a systematic problem that existed from beginning of the time. and this industry isn't going to get fixed until all our interests are mutually aligned. Yes, absolutely. And there's a fairness to it. And I'm not going to tell you on a need-to-know basis.

But as teams, we've got to be forward and we have to communicate, which you did. But there has to be a two-way street. And the business model, you know, the financial's got to get better, the distribution of those and get these interests mutually aligned. We're still going to be okay. The sky's not falling, but opportunities being left

on the table each and every day until something better happens than today. I'm curious though. I don't know how specific you want to get here, but I'm curious, what's working and what's currently broken and how do you fix anything that's not broken? And current day licensing and merch.

Yeah, that's a tough question. That is tough. On the trackside model, let's get to that. The economic model, Kelly alluded to break evens, and I even said today it's $1.4 million. I think as these new TV deal comes to play, this is a personal opinion here, and these tracks get rights to events.

a license and has to be hard code written in. Because, you know, right now, when I go to one track, that track proprietor could charge me XYZ to Parker trailers and you go to another track, there's a different proposition. That shouldn't be. And also in there, and what's always bothered the drivers and the teams is, let's just say, when we sell souvenir, we make a dollar. So, you know, you sold this souvenir.

So from the IP rights holder, the tracks an IP right and so's the driver and so's in the electoral property, how does that dollar get split? Well, the tracks get 55 cents of that dollar. NASCAR gets five cents of that dollar. The driver gets 20 cents at a dollar and the team gets 20 cents on the dollar. Harvick, who's pretty astute businessman for a driver, probably one of the best in the sport. I mean, he's helped us try to champion this. And that has to be a fair split.

And that's part of the problem. And also, the number can't be too high. You can't charge 30% or 40. There has to be just say it's a total industry fee of 20%. It just has to get split better between all the IP marks. Kevin Harvick's name is just as important as Stuart Haas's name, just as important as Racetrack ABC's name. So that's not a good allocation of it.

Now, that's on the track side. And if you write that into the sanctioning agreement, we could fix that long term. We should know for the next five, ten years, we've got to fix that. Now, some tracks are being creative. If this driver does this autograph, you know, maybe we'll reduce the fees. That's not fixing the problem. We've got to fix the problem. I've had that problem in 1995.

Yeah, it's always been a topic of conversation for sure. Yeah, your dad pulled me in front of Bill France in 1995. And I just said, this is a bad economic model. Why do you get this and we have to get that? I said, that's not fair. I think in a larger perspective of the licensing business in general, you know, a lot of it has to do with just, you know, consumers' change of habits, right? So, I mean, if I think of it from the Walmarts of the world and retail and just what, you know,

the different generations are interested in and not interested in, you know, collectibles, people, I don't, I don't think people are collecting things anymore, right? This new generation of people that are, I'm going to say, you know, 30, 35 and under, you know, they're not, I mean, I've got storage upon storage upon storage. Like when I die, somebody's going to have to go through some massive amount of some diecasts and what are they going to do with it? You know, I think to myself and now, why am I hanging on to this and what is somebody going to do with it after I store it for the next 30 years.

And I don't think people are in that mindset of collectableness and things like that. So I think just those consumer habits changing the way retail works and is changing, the floor space dedicated to product in the store, whatever it is. I don't care if it's, you know, shampoo and conditioner versus Dell Jr. T-shirt, you know. And, you know, margins and timing as our sport. has changed with, you know, changing sponsors and changing paint schemes. We don't have the time that we've alluded to that's necessary to create meaningful programs and to create, you know, meaningful things.

And, you know, so you're, you're just, you know, trying to be in the moment of what's going on and do the best you can with what you can. And then the driver star power is certainly different, right? So, I mean, we've talked about the exodus of so many of the names. I mean, the driver star power is different. Their personalities are different. the, you know, the PC world, you know, having to be politically correct in this world today, you know, probably sometimes stashes people's personalities.

And so I just think there's so many things just as life, you know, has changed. I think where people are looking too low is you've got, you know, you've got fun brands and things like that to support. Like we've done some fun things with dirty mo media, with the nostalgic cars and different things like that. and you look at like Ross Chastain and the watermelon stuff. And, you know, you just see these people coming out with even our own door bumper clear guys with a couch racer and different things like that. You know, I think that's what's kind of trending to that generation that I talked about, you know, that 35 and under. The big bites are over. Yeah.

They're good examples of little bites. Yeah. Like little niche audiences, niche. But I think that's what it is these days. I mean, you can go and you can do, you can use all these different like on-demand print sources to. be in a hot market to do something quickly, it's much more difficult to do meaningful, long-term, sustainable programs with the ever-changing landscape

of sponsors, drivers, and so on. I tend to agree with that. But then the sun drop Wilkesboro thing from last year. We had time. You had time. That's right. We had time. We had time to build it.

We had time to build it. And plant and make it and execute it. Build it and they will come. And it's a pretty cool little brand in a niche market. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think on the flip side of the sundrop situation, very authentic to the family, right? I mean, that's just an authentic situation.

You know, we did the number three Bass Pro Shop car with Dale at Florence last year. We did not have as much time on that program as we did on the Sundrop program. And I think the normal expectation would have been that those two paint schemes and those two opportunities could have married each other in expectations. And they did it. And I think they didn't for that reason. And we didn't have time to promote, to continue and do. And that's just very important. And one other thing, too, is the cadence between the two programs.

Correct. Absolutely. You announced a sun drop and you took a lot of money out of the marketplace. Absolutely. And then you came back two months later. You knocked on that fan door again. Yep. You know, maybe right before Christmas wasn't the right time.

I mean, you got to run the program. Which is about timing as well, right? You got to do what's right for the partners and that. And that's where license. and it's secondary and it supports, it just embraces and amplifies what's going on, but it's never going to be the lead dog. Or you have to decide when it can be the lead dog, honestly.

I mean, y'all made that decision with the Olympic program that you talked about, right? That's true. So, I mean, there are opportunities, I think, where you can, but 52 cards have to be up on the table. You have to have those conversations. You've got to have people that understand the business. You've got to, and all of those things kind of have to take place. I mean, we did the sun drop thing.

because we thought it would be cool and it was authentic to the family. And we didn't, you know, go after it from the licensing angle of it. We were like, oh my gosh, we want to run a cool paint scheme. Dale ran that paint scheme at North Wiltsboro. We're going back to North Wiltsboro for the first time in 20 years and this is going to be amazing.

But you had time to plan a program around it because Joe's mind said, oh, this can be a great thing. Our fans are really going to support this. We sold $50,000 worth of soda, sun drop, added that little shop there in two days. I quickly shut that down. That was this year. That was this year.

Yeah. I was in the pickpack and shipping of cans. Yeah. That was, it blew up. Yeah. It was successful until it wasn't successful. Yeah, I just had enough. That's what I'm saying.

I mean, it was, the demand was crazy, and we were just not built for that. Yeah. Do you guys have favorites over the years of merch that has either been generated from Dale Earnhardt or Dale Earnhardt Jr. Or anybody, for that matter. It's not the cabbage patch. It's not the cabbage patch kid. Or the toilet accessories, the bathroom accessories.

I mean, I can get your wheels going on one. I love the story and I think I want you to tell it. The Hurt's So Good T-shirt for Dale Earnhardt. What year was that and what was the occasion, Joe? Well, he wanted to pull after being hurt. Oh, that's right, yeah. Yeah, so I'm up in Pennsylvania. Back to my dad's retiring, 65.

And I find out Friday, Dale won the pull, I mean to pull, and he comes out, it hurts so good. I pick up the phone. I call Ken Barbee, who we've done business, what in motorsports tradition. He prints. I said, hey, Ken, I just got a call from Dale, which I didn't. Oh. Which I did. I said, he wants you to go in tomorrow morning and produce them.

It hurts so good shirts. and send it to me and I'll pick them up, fly him into Binghamton, New York, and I'll pick him up, print as many as you can. Oh, because he won the poll at Watkins Glynn, right? And he was hurt. Yeah, and he's been hurt. And he said, it hurts so good. Yeah.

And I said, Dale wants a pole shirt. And he's like, it was Friday night. And he's like, leave me alone. I mean, it's too late. And I know he gets up early. So I call him 6 o'clock in the morning. I said, Earnhardt's up already, and I got the second call. and Dale doesn't even know.

It's probably a true statement that dad was up already. Yeah. And he's like, you're kidding to me. I said, no. And he just told me to call you. And he said, are you serious? I said, yes, man. So he calls his whole team in.

And he's, the only thing he has there with a shirt is a back of a fan club shirt. We had fan, the back of it was a, you know, D club, whatever, yeah, whatever that. And he goes and he prints on the front of the shirt. heard it hurts so good at pole on the glen you know and um he puts him in a box and he goes down to the airport and pdq in the airport charlotte pretty darn quick and they fly to binghamton new york and all the boxes he could fit in his car like on saturday or sunday no saturday at five o'clock he had he had a print till then wow and um my buddy jimmy picks me up and his corolla which this important the little small car and he we're going there

because he's helping us on the souvenir rig. And so he picks me up, and we go to Binghamton to pick up these boxes. And there's these big boxes, and it's filled up, and they're still warm because they come out of the oven. And the guys are, what is this? What's in that box? And I open it up. I said, here's a shirt, and I give him a shirt. So we carry him out to the corolla, and boxes don't.

You unbox them all. We have to unbox them to get them in the car. Because you can't, you know, you have to shove them underneath. So you have a corolla full of just loose wrapped t-shirts in plastic. Yeah. We drive the painter post holiday in. I said, Jimmy, and now it's like, men and I say, I'm glad bars are open late. And they were open.

And we're sitting there and we're just talking how crazy it was. I said, Jimmy, these race fans are going to see those shirts and you're going to bust your windows. And he's like, I hope not. So we get to the track that next morning. and I called Don, I said, hey, man, you got to show Dale this shirt. Oh, Don Hawk? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, because now he has to prove everything. And he gets in, he brings in to Dale. And now it's Dale's idea. He loves it. I mean, right? What a gamble. Yeah, yeah. Well, but that was literally the first hot market t-shirt.

I mean, it was hot market. You printed on demand, didn't you? Yeah. And then Dr. Jerry Punch put it up. Boom. So Chris Williams is out there selling them, and I only had 7,800 of them. That's all we could fit in there, and that's all we had. Or time to print.

Then all of a sudden, ISC comes after me and says, you're in trouble. You didn't get approval to use, but I want those shirts taken off the wall. Approval. Approval for what? On the pole, on the glen. Ah, uh-uh. For the Watkins Glen marks. They're saying, but I said at the Glen, I didn't use Watkins Glen.

Yeah. Right, right. And I said, I can't take them off the wall. He said, why? I said, it's sold out. And I said, hey, I'm going to keep on producing. We'll pay you. Back off.

What's your problem? This is good, not bad. And I eventually, I think I ended up paying him like $11,000 from it. We just kept on printing those shirts and printing those shirts. And I told Bybee when I got back, I didn't tell the truth. but Dale quickly embraced what an idea. Yeah, that's awesome. Dr. Jerry Punch makes them look so smart.

Yeah. The stoop businessman Dale Earnhardt is. Yeah. Yeah, that may have been my favorite shirt. The one that surprises me, I still to this day, you know, the Dale call. Yeah. Oh, that was funny. You know, the commercial, you know, goes out there and Joe thinking,

Well, that made me so mad I didn't know about that up front. Yeah. I mean, you could have planned a little bit of time. No. And then we had to go and we had to find a guy who go. They can make anything, you know, but and we found the right guy and they made it. And we made a bunch of them. But like, when I saw that first commercial, I'm like, how do we miss this opportunity?

Just got to know. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should have. Maybe we should have missed that. I mean, your dad, I mean, is anything. stick out in terms of your dad's merch?

DiCast or anything? Do you have a favorite piece of diecast? My favorite piece of diecast is the silver car. Yeah, it's by far my favorite. Just the history. I mean, it's good looking, cool. And a tribute. I mean, it was a perfect tribute.

You talk about authentic and natural. That was just, what could be better than that? Yeah. Because they're such a good part of our sport, Winston. Yeah. I think those iconic moments really make, I mean, like sitting here looking at this bud car here, like the baseball car.

I mean, you know, I love that car, but I also think just because of the connection to that iconic moment of Dale winning that race, you know, after dad's death. Like there's just a lot of those things fit together for me, you know, in terms of what I liked about programs or die cast or different things like that. Are y'all saying that the Dirty Mo Media diecast

wasn't the most profitable or, one of the most successful in your career, Joe? Is that what you're trying to say? It's sitting in front of you because it's your favorite. That I understand. I do love it. Your dad was into paint schemes as much as your brother. Oh, yeah.

Is that right? Yeah, he was pretty big into that. We honestly would get very aggravated with the approval process with dad because, I mean, they were sticklers about so many things. I mean, the way the faces looked, I mean, you know, you showed them something and you might have to make massive changes. And changing artwork is not easy. No.

Not easy at all. I'm learning more and more about it just now, even with Ryan Williams, our graphic designer, and it's not an easy process. No. Yeah. Ryan Williams will buy your 30-year stuff.

Yes, there are people out there. Yeah, he is one of the 35 and under that likes collectibles. You talk about Dale in the approval process and everything. And Dale would just, he wanted to know everything. everything. And he just so much, maddest this, maddest that. And I said, Dale, please do be a favor. Give me three things I got to think about every time I make a decision and quit asking so many questions. If I think of these three things that are important to you every time I make a decision,

I'll try to make better decisions the way you would want. But quit asking so many questions. And he said, okay, number one, just like you work for me, I work for Bill France. He's Superman. Don't tug on his cape. I mean, boom. Advice number one he gave me. Advice number two is without Richard Chilerson and out my sponsors, I really don't have anything. And he had all the rights to that.

And we talked about that earlier, he said, but we really have to be cognizant and take care of Richard and the sponsors. and number three he said Trees is heavily heavily involved in this business and she is really involved in this business and you just have to recognize that and respect that and there may be things you and I do but you know we're going to have to do because we're going to have to do it

but she's going to be right and you're going to be wrong and I didn't know what that meant and so you go and good wrench GM's emblem our customer and they have this free oil lube and do this and get that and there's just a simple three hat to get approved and she keeps on saying no and she keeps on saying no and she keeps on saying no and so i go to dale i said dale they're going to buy 15 000 hats i mean come on dale he's okay let it go maddice i soon found out

what that meant so we're on the airplane because i would fly it you know my my mentor was dale yeah i fly to every race with them and go work to souvenir trailers and i fly back and that's where i had all my I won for two years in a row. I flew at every race with him. And Trice would sit there looking at her magazines and opened the page. She'd just wait for the right time and said, I said no to this. And those gargoyles were on his face for a reason. He would turn his face and look outside.

And he's the one told me to go do it. And I'd have to be there. And she's like, and he would be just not looking at me. And she'd be yelling at me. And I'm like, I got to go back and find out. I know you said, no. I don't know how that slipped through. And let me get back to you.

And that's what he meant by that. And I always took all the bullets. Yep. She must have called me that dumb Mattis. He'd making a lot of mistakes, Dale. But he did let me approve stuff. He had my back, but he just turned his head. So you're talking about favorite products.

So we had this hat, the shark tooth hat. Oh, yeah. And so it was a white hat, but it looked like. shark fins with black and some of them we had you know GM on the front and then some we had the three on the front and um and that was the shark tooth hat and i mean wildly successful i don't know how many years we carried it and how many was sold but wildly wildly wildly successful so i'm in the airplane um this was like a week after the drag races were here for charlotte not too long ago and um i'm in the airplane and the guy sitting next to me has a john

force t-shirt on and he has a john force hat on and it's the shark hat but it's john force and it was kind of dingy looking and everything you know and and so i you know was making conversation i say we're here for the drag race he said no i was here for something else but he was dressed head to toe as a john force fan and i said well i'm just curious i said how long have you had that hat and because i'm thinking he's going to tell me like 20 years right 22 years and he goes i just got it last year and i was like oh wow I said, and so I end up telling them, you know, I said, you know, I was in the licensing business for a long time, and I said, we made a hat for Deller and Hart like that that was just so successful. And I was so, it was so funny to see it.

It's carried on. Like whoever does John Forrest's product. It's a great hat. It's carried on, you know, all these years. And, I mean, that hat was massively successful. That was their number one hat. Yeah. Yeah.

We did a black and red version. Yeah. And we went to a black and white for GM. Yeah. That's right. That's right. All right, I, let me think of how. The number, the number was E2518. Yeah, right. We always laugh about that because, like, we, all of our numbers as we started at Sports Image, we would have, like, you know, E bottle.

That would be the, that one, you got mad at me the one time, E bear. Yes. Yeah, our coding system was pretty simple. Yeah, so we had this little plush bear, it would be E bear or, but then we would, like, we had, E was for Earnhardt, obviously, and if it was Rusty Wallace, it was double. or whatever. And then the one meant for a t-shirt, a two was for a hat, a three was for whatever, a four was for women's, you know, so on and so forth. And then, you know, we'd be like E-234, E-123. And we have these iconic numbers that stick out in our head from those that were just so wildly successful. This actually reminds me as something I wanted to ask you both. And

between the shark tooth hat style and Joe, you're talking about Teresa's approval, you know, process, you will. I was curious if you ever became, if you ever established an understanding of, of, of the preferences that her and Dale were going to approve or not, like if there was ever a common understanding of why things were not approved and why things were. And the reason I'm really wondering that is because NASCAR merch really took off into this crazy, space where the designs and the colors were like all over the place. And so you're talking about shark tooth three hat, which would have clearly been approved by Teresa and Dale, whereas a simple, clean example that you were talking about just a few

minutes ago, I thought I said no to that. So I'm like, one could argue that these things got so loud. NASCAR merch is known for its loudness. Oh yeah, the Oliver printees. And the big checkers and the orange and the black and all this stuff. And I'm just, I'm curious on those two things. One, did you, is that a thing that Herndella embraced? They liked that?

Were they a part of why it became that way? And if not, who did, what started the loudness of the merging, the NASCAR style? I don't know. Yeah, I don't either. There was always total prints and there was always, there was colors. Now, his car being black. I mean, that kind of, that themes you. But Ricky Rudd's car was bright.

Tide was bright. So, you know, from that, you have a lot of derivatives. So a lot of it's sponsor, too, and how we embrace team colors and that. So I don't know how many crazy colors we really got into Dale. Maybe we did. Yeah. Well, maybe it wasn't colors, but the design, I mean, I look at Dale Earnhardt people, or Dale Earnhardt shirts today.

I mean, there isn't a, there isn't a square inch of regular canvas. You're using every piece of that shirt for some sort of graphic. I can't really think of the specific things. Like we didn't have like a playbook that said, we want to prove this or we want to prove that. We really had to go at them with every single design. And, yeah. The only thing I learned is if that visor was green, that hat was getting thrown at me.

Oh, right, because of the superstition. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I hate, we'd get a super good hat and say it was a shark tooth. And because they made a sample and it came in green, I couldn't even show them. Like if it was a good design, just look at the hat and don't worry about the green. No, I had to wait for a new sample. Yeah. I was always curious if, like, maybe Sam Bass's influence started to kind of trickle over into the merchandise.

Because his art was largely loud, right? Like it was big colors and Dale worked with Sam. Yeah. Did he? A lot. A lot. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not really? No. No. No. Oh, well.

Bobby Morley. Oh, yeah. What did you, what was your opinion of the Peter Max car? That was loud. Yeah. Yes, this one. Yeah. That was loud.

I mean, I was in college. And was I in college? What year was this, Joe? I may have been 99-ish. That was later down the line. This did not feel intimidating to me. No, it wasn't. No.

We did a Wheaties in 97. That looked good. Yeah, that was a fun car. But what happened here? I feel like that was a Teresa thing. Peter Max was like a upscale design. You know, obviously he was a major artist, but I mean, I think that was more along those lines.

I wasn't there for that. You weren't, no. Gladly? I mean, I, yeah, I don't know. All right. Do you like this car or not? Did you like this? Is this one of your favorites? It was one of the least sellers. It was not wildly a favorite. It was one of the least sellers. Yes. I didn't like it. It's a shocker. Yeah. So I think. Tell your statistic about the top 25 diecast like what my dad and Dale's diecast like of the top 25 they make up. Do you have that handy?

I would, no, I don't, but the Olympics ends up being P1. Like pretty much of the 25 spaces. they occupy probably more than half to three quarters. I would say 15 plus. Yeah. Yeah. Father and son. Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt.

Let me see if I can take a guess here. You take baseball paint scheme. It's got to be in there. Yeah, certainly. The final exalted car, the tribute car, the big paint scheme. Big one, huh? Yeah. The kick off of both 08's cars, both in them, real, real big.

Another interesting fact. The Wrangler car. Yeah. Xfinity. Hey, sun drop, late model was number four last year. Of all the cup drivers, our sun drop, late model, and I wore out Howard Hitchcock from Lino. You better rank, Howard's like, this is just a cup ranking.

I'm like, no, I want that dang sundrop rank. It's a dark-ass ranking. Yeah. And so that was number four last year. Yeah. So Dale and her had the Wheaties, the Peter Max, the Silver, the Olympics. Am I missing a special paint scheme? Is there a Bass Pro paint scheme?

Bass Pro Gold, wasn't it? Bass Pro Gold. Tasmanian Devil with Warner Brothers. Dale Jr., I would say, I mean, gosh, he's had so many special paintings. They have the DMP. When he won to Batman, I mean, Michigan. How did that go? Very well.

Very well. Yeah. Now, there's a thing we don't do anymore, but we worked with Warner Brothers had a good relationship. That is timing. That's 18 months out, 12 months out, because you've got to get rights of a pretty, back to that Olympic thing. Who's bigger than who? I mean, so you got to acquire rights, and we had a real good relationship with them, and that car did extremely well. What about when Dale Jr. did the Mountain Dew car at Darlington? Did that do well? Remember that? It kind of looked like a Darrell Waltrip. Yeah, it wasn't Wild Trip. I'm sure it did. There's a lot to remember. It doesn't pop out as like a massive. The special paint scheme, would you agree?

I don't know if you are fan of them or not, but it feels like it became less special and more saturated. Yeah, obviously, yeah, yeah. It has to be relevant. It has to be authentic. Has to have a story. Has to have a story. Yeah, it's got to have a purpose.

Here's one thing. because Sports Image did so well with Dale's Winston and his Olympic, Rusty Wallace asked us to help him in his 25th tribute. So we, Sports Image, what became a distributor of Rusty Wallace's, and at that time we were only Dale Earnhardt company. Right, that's right. But we just, we knocked those two off so well. His paint, that was a big, I don't know, was it,

Rusty Wallace 25th tribute or whatever it was, we did that as well. That's cool. It's been fun. It's been fun. We've got to work and do, I mean, thinking about Rusty Wallace, we got to work with Elvis Presley Enterprises on programs. I mean, we have got to do some cool stuff. You know, I got to go to Graceland with Rusty and on that program. I mean, there's the Warner Brothers relationships and things like that.

We've really worked with some amazing companies and corporations and people in the same business that has been really cool. For sure. Well, I have enjoyed this two episodes with Joe Mattis. It's exceeded all of my expectations. And I hope that the listeners of the Dale Jr. download appreciate all that Joe has done, not just in these two episodes, but what he's been doing for, you know, two decades for them. Definitely been in the backbone. Three decades, he says. Three decades. That's right. I forget. We're into our third decade, aren't we? Kelly, I thank you also. It's been fun.

It's been real fun. Thank you. All right, great. Great episode. Thanks for everyone joining us and listening. And we'll see you soon for another business of motorsports here from the Bojangles Studio. Man, I'm really excited to have Ally help us bring the guest segment every week. It's one of my favorite parts of the download.

We get to talk to so many different people in racing, outside of racing. But everybody that comes in here, I want them to have had a good time. I want them to want to come back. I want them to feel like an ally. to Dirtymoe Media. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the download and the entire Dirtymoe media team. Check out Dirtymoe Media.

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