Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Saw this Tweeted by WoO regarding a title sponsor being announced. Well it doesn't specifically say "new" so perhaps they could be announcing an extension with Craftsman,

https://twitter.com/WorldofOutlaws/status/1083383933084024834

I think that had to do with the Late Model series as Morton Buildings is the new title sponsor, announced this afternoon.  My Facebook app just notified me that the World of Outlaws Sprint Car page changed their name and it looks like they removed Craftsman from their page name, so that may answer that question.

Craftsman's new home is the 2,000+ Lowes Improvement stores. They are selling out their Kobalt products and Craftsman will be their major brand.  Wonder if they had to bid on the Craftsman rights with for instance Menards, Home Depot, etc, or were just awarded the rights.  

Go young guns!

I noticed that just a few days ago when I was in Lowes.   I think that's going to be a much better deal for Craftsman.    

Sears sold the Craftsman brand to Lowe's. Before their ship sank.

No, Stanley bought Craftsman... And Stanley proposed Lowes to sell Craftsman vs Cobalt.

The Crowd Pleaser IS THE BEST ever!

Please correct me if I'm wrong but we seem to blend Sears and Craftsman into one entity. I believe Sears was a retailer and Craftsman was a tool manufacturer and the agreement was for Sears to sell craftsman. I do not think Sears ever owned Craftsman. 2 separate companies. When Sears sank craftsman simply found a new outlet. Stanley bought Craftsman which never affected Sears.  So Stanleys involvement in this specific situation is kind of a moot point. 

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

Sears actually created Craftsman in 1927 and owned the brand until 2017 when SearsSear sold to Stanley/Black & Decker. Sears never manufactured the tools though as it has always sourced that out. I believe in 2004 KMart Holdings purchased Sears Roebuck and the two became Sears Holding Company and Craftsman was sold at Kmart stores as well as Sears.

After the Stanley tools purchase, Sears was allowed to still sale Craftsman tools in their stores but it was not the exclusive retailer like it had been. Stanley now controls the brand however when the original WoO deal was made for sponsorship, it was done under Sears ownership. When Stanley bought Craftsman, all sponsorships and other things were acuired with the purchase. So WoO (WRG) would have to negotiate with Stanley now & not Sears on any sponsorship details or renewals

I am not sure how true it is, however I am not sure that Sears has the "Exclusive" rights to the Craftsman Brand. Back when I was in high School I worked for Ace Hardware, in the 2010-2011 range, and we had the opportunity to sell Craftsman tools, even had many meetings about it at work, however if you wanted to have Craftsman tools in your store, you had to offer every tool that Craftsman sells, which I believe at that time, was around 700-800 items. If your had one on your shelf you had to have them all on your shelves. I think that is more why "bigger" retailers had them rather than the smaller places. That may have changed now, because the neighborhood Ace where I live has some Craftsman stuff also.

If it was 2010-2011 then Sears no longer had the exclusive rights to Craftsman Tools. It was around the mid 2000s after they merged/got bought out by KMart when it began letting other stores like Kmart and some other retailers sale Craftsman tools. It basically started when Edward Lampert took over as CEO in 2004 and began merging & selling off parts & brands of Sears instead of exclusively owning the rights and closing stores. Sadly Sears had the technology to do what Amazon is currently doing today but did not have the leadership or the thinking to use it. A company that started essentially as a catalog for mail orders, did not capitalize on something that was sitting in their laps. We did a case study in College about Sears when all of this was taking place and even said they needed to focus more as an online retailer as that was the future market trend. CBS recently did a report on Sears also that made mention to these points as well about the fall of Sears which talks about them selling off their brands. Link below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYGOg9kUsfE