Kevin Harvick Conflict of Interest: How Will NASCAR Legend Navigate Tricky Scenario?

Kevin Harvick may not be racing in the upcoming Daytona 500 but his name will be represented well. Six drivers who will be on the field are clients of Kevin Harvick Incorporated (KHI), the retired icon’s sports and celebrity marketing agency. As he takes a seat in the Fox booth for his first Cup Series race as an analyst, Harvick could face a dilemma in talking transparently about them on-air, but it isn’t something he is worried about.

In a conversation with Jeff Gluck from The Athletic he clarified that he has always been able to segregate business and competition, even as a driver. Using examples of him spinning Todd Gilliland and Robby Gordon [both clients] in years before, he emphasized that he didn’t let the manager-client relationship sway him from expressing his feelings.

In his words, “So there’s always been that separation of being a competitor and the business. I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.” Continuing about how transparent he would be about his clients on-air, he said, “I’m going to tell them (off air) if they screw up anyway, so I would tell them the exact same thing I’m gonna say on TV. It’s not going to be anything different than I would say straight to them.”

Harvick believes that there is no point in holding his words back since the drivers are going to hear them anyway. He also underlined that the straightforwardness that came from him was one of the reasons that drivers liked KHI so much and that he wasn’t going to backtrack on that in the booth.

The reasons for Kevin Harvick’s straightforwardness to his clients

Harvick is one of the most experienced figures in the active NASCAR scenario today. Any driver on the grid would consider himself lucky to hear words of advice from him and the KHI clients are no different. Aware of this expectation, Harvick has adopted a no-beating-around-the-bush method when offering criticism.

He says, “When I tell them they screwed up or did something wrong, I’m trying to be constructive to help (them) get better… Making somebody feel good about something they did wrong is not the right way to do it. Wrong is wrong and right is right.”  Now that they will not have to compete against Harvick, the drivers will only be more pleased with his approach.

The six drivers on the KHI roster are Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Todd Gilliland, Ryan Preece, Josh Berry, Harrison Burton, and Corey LaJoie.