It's official: Kentucky added to 2011 Sprint Cup schedule

Autoracing Betting Lines

08/10/2010 - Sparta, KY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is coming to the "Bluegrass State," starting in 2011.

After more than a decade of requesting a Cup date, Kentucky Speedway will be added to the 2011 schedule. Bruton Smith, the chairman and chief executive officer of Speedway Motorsports Inc., the parent company of the speedway, confirmed on Tuesday the 1.5-mile oval, located roughly 40 miles south of downtown Cincinnati, will host a 400-mile night-time Cup race on July 9, 2011.

"You've been waiting 11 years," Smith said during a news conference held at the speedway.

SMI bought the speedway in 2008.

Last week, officials from Atlanta Motor Speedway announced the track will host only one Cup event, which will take place on Labor Day weekend, beginning next year. SMI moved its Atlanta spring race to Kentucky.

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and officials from both NASCAR and the Kentucky Speedway, as well as former NASCAR driver and Kentucky native Darrell Waltrip and Joey Logano, who has won the last three Nationwide Series races at the track, were among those present for the announcement.

"I thought I've been to some exciting events, but I haven't been to one more exciting than the announcement that Bruton Smith just gave us," Governor Beshear said. "The addition of a 400-mile NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in 2011 solidifies the speedway's status as a world-class motorsports venue in the nation's number-one spectator sport. In it's 11th year, the speedway has finally reached the pinnacle."

The track opened in 2000, with the Camping World Truck Series competing once each year since then. The Nationwide Series has been racing here once each season since 2001.

Nationwide will join Sprint Cup on the same weekend at Kentucky next year.

The current seating capacity at the speedway is 66,000, but Smith said he plans to add an additional 50,000 seats to the venue.

Kentucky becomes the first track added to the Cup schedule since Chicagoland Speedway and Kansas Speedway - both 1.5 miles in length -- in 2001.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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