Target ends sponsorship of Indy...

Target has sponsored an IndyCar team for 27 years, one of the longest-running sponsorships in all of sports. Their partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing has led to lots of publicity and lots of wins. However, Consumerist reports that Target has announced the partnership will end at the end of this season.

The reason is a bit muddled. The retailer's hometown paper, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, reports that Target will continue sponsoring a NASCAR team, so it isn’t as if the company wants to sever its ties with racing entirely and stop advertising to its fans. But sponsoring a team is pricey, and having teams in both major auto racing series is doubly expensive, so there is speculation that cost savings might be a motive. A Target spokeswoman told the Star-Tribune that the change is “really about injecting some newness around our approach to sports marketing.”