Tweeting at 200 MPH
A PR class at the UO set Tyson Winter on a career path that turned out to be a two-mile oval—the former journalism student now manages social media for NASCAR. (Photo by Alejandro Alvarez)
An organization that has its roots in the Prohibition era, when bootleggers would soup up their cars to outrun police while ferrying liquor around back country roads in the middle of the night, is bound to have more than its share of quirky characters, making it a dream job for any public relations professional.
You want a sport with a colorful history? It’s hard to top NASCAR. One Hall of Famer spent time in prison for having an illegal still. A fellow Hall of Famer and bootlegger once landed his single-engine plane on the main street of his hometown so he could park it at a diner and have breakfast. With nicknames like “the King” and “the Intimidator,” stock car racing’s biggest legends sound more like extras in The Sopranos than elite drivers.
But while the bootlegging days are over—drivers these days earn their fortunes through sponsorships and endorsement deals—there are still stories to be told. Some, like the Confederate flag ban and a noose found in the garage of the only Black driver—are uncomfortable but necessary. Some, like a doubleheader race weekend with IndyCar, the age-old Ford v. Chevy argument, and Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney’s unabashed love of all things Star Wars—the graphic for his podcast even features him dressed as Luke Skywalker—are great fodder for fans.
And in the heart of it all, bringing NASCAR to the public on social media, is Tyson Winter, Class of 2011, who studied public relations at the UO.
Winter comes from a family of Ducks, as his mother and two older brothers also studied at the University of Oregon.
“I just knew that the University of Oregon, and the School of Journalism and Communication, were where I wanted to go from pretty much day one,” said Winter.
The editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper, Winter planned on working for the Daily Emerald at the UO and then pursuing a career as a reporter. But after taking J350 Principles of Public Relations, taught by senior instructor Kelli Matthews, BA ’01, MA ’04, he had an epiphany.
“I fell in love with PR, and it was at that same time when social media was going from a novelty to a necessity,” said Winter. “I had a hunch that companies would like to take advantage of social media someday, and I could shape my career path to do social media for them.”
After leaving the UO, Winter washed dishes at Hot Mama’s Wings and worked the juice bar at the Downtown Athletic Club in Eugene, while doing social media for companies on the side to build up his professional portfolio.
That experience enabled him to get a job with the Pac-12 Networks in San Francisco, where he was able to work on graphic design, copywriting, and production.
“Being a huge sports fan and an Oregon Duck fanatic, it was a dream job,” said Winter. “I got to come up with fun things like ‘Pac-12 After Dark’ and cover all kinds of Pac 12 sports. The inherent disadvantage of the Pac-12 Network is that it's only in 12 million homes nationwide, so we used our social and digital channels to break through to our audiences, and we had a lot of fun doing it. We were able to share our highlights without restrictions and have a lot of fun, and that enhanced our brand's image.”
Hold up. The famous ‘Pac-12 After Dark’ phrase was coined by a Duck?
“That was a product of me working the night desk at the Pac-12 Network, covering late football games where they're going to double and triple overtime and throwing Hail Marys. My bosses came to me and said, “This sounds like ‘HBO After Dark,’ it almost sounds seedy.’ I said, ‘The people seem to love it, we should just go with it because we get a ton of flack on social media for our late kickoff times, but really we're the only product on TV at those late hours and we have some crazy football action going on.’
“It stuck around, and now ‘Pac 12 After Dark’ is something that ESPN says when they cut to a Pac-12 football game, so that's something I really am proud of.”
Tyson Winter, then with the Pac-12 Network, and Christian McCaffrey on the field following a Stanford game.
Winter’s time with the Pac-12 Network led to a stint with Fox Sports, where he worked with NFL prospects in the lead up to the 2017 draft, helping them hone their online presences in order to connect better with their fans. And that’s when NASCAR came calling.
“They said, ‘We want you to do the same kind of thing for our drivers,’” said Winter. “’We're really looking for someone who can come in and teach our drivers how to market themselves on social media.’ NASCAR would be the first to admit that their stars were lacking in that respect.”
Winter, a casual NASCAR fan growing up packed up his belongings and headed east, leaving California behind and moving to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Initially, Winter’s work with NASCAR was an extension of what he did with Fox Sports. He spent time with the drivers, shooting, editing, and packaging content for their social media channels to help them engage with their existing fans, find new fans, and provide exposure for the sponsors who help the drivers and teams pay their bills.
“Daniel Suárez is a guy I worked with really closely,” said Winter. “He's our only international driver—he's from Mexico. He was really thirsty to learn more, and that's really what it takes with these athletes. Guys who are very well established can sometimes see social media as more of a risk than a tool. That's fine, but really what I want as a marketer is to find these people who are coachable, and Daniel was really coachable.”
Winter put Suárez through a three-month social media boot camp, establishing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts, and outlining a schedule for the driver to post content and interact with fans.
“A lot of people just post stuff on social media and they don't ever come back to it,” said Winter. “Really what drives relationships, and what drives fandom, is those meaningful interactions between celebrities and fans.”
Under Winter’s tutelage, Suárez’s presence exploded—the driver now has 300,000 subscribers and followers across his four social media platforms.
“It's really about finding the qualities in each driver, finding the audience they're going to appeal to,” said Winter. “In Daniel’s case, it's going to be the international fan base and the Hispanic fan base. Maybe with a younger, 18- or 20-year-old driver, it's going to be a younger college-age audience that likes to party. One size does not fit all when it comes to social media.”
Winter no longer works with NASCAR’s drivers, and instead works with the parent company’s social media accounts—his current favorite is TikTok.
“It's so much fun, and it's a new audience that’s growing like gangbusters,” said Winter. “NASCAR really let me have the reins to take TiKTok and run with it. It's great to show off our corporate humor side on TikTok. It's also a great place to educate, because TiKTok’s median age for a user is 16 or 17 years old. A lot of these people have maybe never been exposed to NASCAR before, so it's a great opportunity to reel people in with the content, and then they say, ‘Oh my gosh, I like their TiKTok, I'm going to actually consume the sport on television.’ That's obviously a win for us.”
Tyson Winter at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina.
Buoyed in part by NASCAR being one of the few North American sports operating during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the sport is reaching more fans than ever before—television ratings are up eight percent since the start of the season. Another reason for NASCAR’s increased viewership this season though is the headlines it is generating off the track.
Following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers on May 25, protests against police brutality against African Americans broke out nationwide. In response to that, Bubba Wallace—NASCAR’s only Black full-time driver—called on the sport to ban Confederate flags at its races. On June 10 NASCAR did just that, saying, “The presence of the Confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors, and our industry.”
The response from sports fans though was even more emphatic. The television ratings for the first race held after the ban, the Blue Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500, were up 113 percent over the same race, on the same network, the year before—and that was for a race held in an empty Martinsville Speedway in Virginia, where there were no fans in the stands or parking lots to fly flags of any description.
Two weeks later, a noose was found in Wallace’s garage at the Talladega Superspeedway. While NASCAR conducted its investigation—it was later found to be a door pull that had been in the garage for months—opposing drivers and crew members publicly rallied around Wallace, pushing his car to the front of the grid before the GEICO 500.
“The drivers feel very strongly that they want to show their support of Bubba,” NASCAR president Steve Phelps said on a pre-race teleconference. “He’s a member of the NASCAR community. He’s a member of the NASCAR family. The outpouring of support over the last couple weeks from our drivers, from the industry as a whole, from the fans has been phenomenal.”
Despite being held on a Monday due to bad weather on the original Sunday race day, TV ratings for the GEICO 500 jumped 20 percent over the Homestead-Miami race a week earlier.
“Coming from the Pacific Northwest and the University of Oregon, I always knew the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism and hate,” said Winter. “When I first came to NASCAR, I couldn't have been more blown away. The first time I went to a race, I saw the level of diversity in the garage: blue collar people, white collar people, men, women, Black, white, all backgrounds coming together. I've never seen anything like it in a sport. So when I saw the Confederate flag at the racetrack, I never liked it.
“I was so proud when Bubba Wallace decided to take a stand and NASCAR made the call for change. For the past few weeks we've been hearing it from both sides. There are certain people who feel that maybe NASCAR has betrayed them. But there are many people who are taking interest in our sport who may never have had any interest before because of the connotations that came along with NASCAR. The enthusiasm has been off the charts.”
During the NASCAR season, Winter spends the early part of each week repackaging content from the previous race weekend and posting it across NASCAR’s social media channels. By the time the middle of the week rolls around he’s promoting the upcoming race and finding natural ways to incorporate the sponsors into promotions, like funny videos showing the reveal of each new paint scheme on Kevin Harvick’s Busch beer-sponsored car—including one race in 2019 when Harvick lost a bet and raced a car with a Millennial-themed paint job.
“They spelled ‘skirt’ wrong,” said a bemused Harvick during the unveiling, while looking at “Skrrrt Skrrrt”—rap slang for moving away from somebody—painted on the side of his car. “Will the league approve that?” he asked, while looking at “Busch AF”—Busch As [expletive deleted]—on the hood.
Winter is on-site during race weekend, posting content that shows the personality of each racetrack and spending time with the fans. During the races he shoots footage on his mobile phone for instant posting, and also on a professional camera for higher quality footage he can edit and post later.
“Sports fans aren't just into the highlights of the race,” Winter said. “They're into the mystique of what makes each event interesting. The more I can do to bring that flavor to our social channels, the better.”
But 2020 is no regular season, and with only drivers and crew allowed at the race tracks due to the pandemic, Winter covers the races from the comfort of his apartment in Charlotte. Lately, that has meant covering them from the comfort of his bed.
“Sitting in bed live tweeting the races is quite different,” said Winter. “It's totally changed. We don't have that flavor on our social channels this year of being at the racetrack. I wouldn't say that our coverage has suffered because of it, and in many ways its evolved for the better, but I'll be the first to tell you that I can't wait to get back to the track and get back to what I do best, which is bring the flavor of each place we go to our social channels.”
Check out Tyson's work on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or, yes, TikTok, or tune in and watch the first round of the NASCAR playoffs on Sunday, September 6, at 3:00 p.m. PT on the NBC Sports Network.
- by Damian Foley