With the FIFA World Cup taking place in the U.S. this summer, RFK Racing has aligned with its sister property Liverpool FC to help promote the Premier League team and its joint sponsor Trimble in NASCAR.
The sides are set to announce Friday morning that they will unveil a Liverpool/Trimble shared paint scheme on RFK’s No. 17 Ford at a “Premier League Mornings Live” fan festival this weekend in Tampa before driver Chris Buescher gets in the car for the Cup Series race at Sonoma Raceway in late June.
Trimble is a Colorado-based infrastructure hardware/software company that first signed on with RFK last year before later reaching an understanding with Liverpool. Given that Trimble sponsors both teams, the teams felt that brand made sense to work with on the project, which will also involve a licensed merchandise line.
The June 28 race at Sonoma will take place two weeks after the World Cup begins. The paint scheme will be shown off at the “Premier League Mornings Live” traveling road show put on by the property and NBC Sports. The NASCAR team is jointly owned by Fenway, NASCAR HOFer Jack Roush and 2012 Cup Series champion and continuing driver Brad Keselowski.
RFK SVP/Brand Strategy, Marketing & Communications Dawn Turner said the deal started coming together at Fenway’s annual audience development conference, where the NASCAR team got to talking with the soccer club. RFK execs told Liverpool execs that they had done a Red Sox-branded car and could do a Liverpool car, and Trimble execs thought “that’d be really cool,” according to Turner. “And that’s literally how it started,” Turner said.
The merchandise line with co-branded Liverpool/RFK Racing products is in the works but isn’t being revealed Friday, Turner said. Liverpool commercial director Katie Theobald told SBJ in an email: “Bringing together the power of global football and American motorsport allows us to show up in a way that feels locally relevant in the U.S., while still resonating with our global fan base. From a value perspective, this is about bringing new collaborations to our fans that are fun and creating unique partnership opportunities in one of Liverpool FC’s most important international markets.”
