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Tom Compton was named president of NHRA on Jan. 1, 2000, becoming only the third president since the organization was founded in 1951. He also serves on the NHRA’s Board of Directors.
Compton’s leadership plan for NHRA began on the first day of his tenure, from which point he set forth to engineer a dramatic change in the way NHRA conducts its business. Under his direction, NHRA earned a top ranking among all sports, including the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NASCAR, in offering good value for the money and it was among the top sports properties in the country in terms of sponsor service-oriented categories (Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal’s 2003 League Report Card).
Compton's first decade in charge of the world's largest motorsports organization will be remembered most notably for the partnerships he forged with Coca-Cola and ESPN.
He was the driving force behind the efforts to secure the best television package in NHRA history, a now 15-year partnership with ESPN and ESPN2 that began in 2001 and will continue through to at least 2016. The landmark agreement features hundreds of hours of coverage on the world’s foremost sports programming network.
Compton also was instrumental in securing a new series sponsor, Coca-Cola’s POWERade sports drink, only the second series sponsor in the sport’s 50-plus year history. It's one of the longest-running sponsorships in motorsports -- the current deal has been extended through to 2013 -- and the relationship was re-energized in 2009 as it was announced in Atlanta on April 25, 2008 that Coca-Cola would be introducing its premier energy drink, Full Throttle, as the Series' new entitlement sponsor.
Compton, 51, joined NHRA in 1993 as vice president-chief financial officer and brought with him a wealth of knowledge in business administration and finance. He was promoted to senior vice president in 1996 and a year later promoted to executive vice president and general manager. During the three years in that position, Compton was responsible for NHRA’s race operations group, publications, NHRA-owned and operated race tracks, facilities development, national event business, human resources, and all administrative and fiscal functions.
Prior to joining NHRA, Compton worked for four years at Mars, Inc. and spent more than five years at Media Home Entertainment. He held numerous planning-related positions at Mars, Inc. including operations, business, marketing and sales planning. At Media Home Entertainment, he played an integral role in the start-up of the company’s sports programming and children’s video divisions before being named director of planning and analysis and then vice president-controller of the entire organization.
For his achievements since taking his position as president of NHRA, Compton was selected as Car Craft’s 2001 Person of the Year, an honor awarded to an individual who has had the most dramatic and positive impact on the sport of drag racing during the previous year.
He also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in Novi, Mich. and he is the NHRA’s appointed director, and serves as the treasurer for, the Automobile Competition Committee of the United States (ACCUS), which is the National Sporting Authority (ASN) of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) for the United States.
A Northern California native, Compton received his bachelor’s degree in economics from University of California, Los Angeles and holds a master’s of business administration in international finance from the University of Southern California.
Compton and his wife, Kathy, have two daughters.
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