Brandon Brown's team says NASCAR approved its sponsor. NASCAR says it didn't.
Caught in the middle, Brown's 2022 prospects momentarily are in "limbo."
Brown seemingly believed he had secured a full-season sponsorship deal from LGBcoin on Thursday, only for NASCAR to claim later that day that it hadn't approved the deal. LGBcoin is a cryptocurrency whose name plays on the "Let's go, Brandon" political slogan, and NASCAR reserves the right to reject any team's paint scheme and sponsorship.
But Max Marcucci, who represents Brown and his Brandonbilt Motorsports team, refuted NASCAR's assertion to Josh Peter of USA Today.
"I don't know where the disconnect was," Marcucci told Peter, insisting the team had received written approval from NASCAR.
This wasn't the only way NASCAR threw cold water on Brown's sponsorship announcement, however.
It also was reported by Sports Business Journal's Adam Sterm that NASCAR is considering banning all political sponsorships and schemes, starting in 2022. Whether this news was leaked in relation to Brown's announcement was unclear.
A number of things therefore are up in the air as Brown looks ahead to his Xfinity Series season. Has his sponsor been approved or not? And would it all be moot if NASCAR bans it anyhow?
One of the few things for certain is that it's been a strange year for Brown. He went from relative obscurity to a national meme when a trackside reporter misheard fans' chants following his win at Talledega Superspeedway in October, then reportedly saw potential sponsorships dry up as a result.
He thought he'd found a lifeline in LGBcoin, but instead he'll end this life-altering year unsure of what's next.
