The Sprint phone company will end its tenure as the title sponsor of NASCAR's top series after the 2016 season, which will make the "Sprint Cup" era a total of nine seasons. Sprint took over from Nextel in 2008 following the 2005 Sprint-Nextel merger. The Nextel Cup era, following the 2003 departure of tobacco company Winston, took place between 2004 and 2007, making the Sprint Cup name essentially an extension of the Nextel Cup brand. Sprint took over from Nextel by heavily promoting mobile phone usage in NASCAR, leading to a rule that caused car sponsors AT&T (as a Cingular rebrand) and Alltel to pull out. This will be the series' third title sponsor change in what will be 13 years after the end of Winston's sponsorship.
Back in June, Sprint and fellow mobile phone service T-Mobile were considering a merger under the T-Mobile name, which would have forced the NASCAR series to be renamed the "T-Mobile Cup Series." The merger was ultimately called off in August, leaving Sprint as the title sponsor originally through 2018, but now only through 2016 as announced on Tuesday. A rumor has been flying around the internet that Budweiser has already been lined up to replace Sprint starting in 2017, but this is likely little more than a speculative fan-made logo, and there are a lot more potential sponsors for the series as well.
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