Wallace’s rise in prominence this year has taken the sport by storm. Prior to the start of the 2020 NASCAR season, 1 in 3 self-identified NASCAR fans polled by Morning Consult said they had never heard of Wallace, who was entering his third year behind the wheel of the No. 43 Chevrolet for Richard Petty Motorsports. Eight months later, the Sept. 30-Oct. 1 poll indicated Wallace is stock car racing’s most well-known driver among U.S. adults.
He stepped in the spotlight in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, publicly urging NASCAR leadership to ban the display of the Confederate flag at its races and donning an all-black paint scheme in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
When NASCAR officials believed they found a noose in his garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway in late June, the ensuing controversy made national news and, eventually, put him in the Twitter crosshairs of President Donald Trump, elevating his profile far beyond racing circles.
“It drew so many eyes to the sport from people that would never have watched NASCAR or motorsports in general,” said Josh Day, an account management director at Sport Dimensions, a marketing firm specializing in motorsports. “And the way that the series responded, the way that all of the drivers rallied around Bubba -- no matter what the result of [the investigation] was -- they all rallied around him.”
Since his whirlwind month, Wallace has attracted corporate dollars from new entrants to NASCAR, including Columbia Sportswear Co. and Apple Inc.-owned Beats by Dre. The flurry of deals have come amid a pandemic that has caused many companies to reduce their spending on sports sponsorships.
"He's been the outlier of 2020 in terms of the number and types of deals that he's been able to get done and bring brands in the sport," said Jimmy Bruns, a senior vice president specializing in motorsports at GMR Marketing.
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