[Rumours] Belgian GP to be axed

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

What grade will Gotland Ring be when it's finished? Besides, I said Sweden as an off the top of my head country in Europe with a motorsport tradition but no Grand Prix. It could apply to France or Finland.

I think it'll be Grade 2 once the Southern Loop is added (to make the full GP course), with Grade 1 probably in reach. Of course, they'll have to fork up a lot more cash for that to happen, cosidering they've spent the last year or two just finishing the safety features on the Northern Loop to make it Grade 4 and pass our national ASN's track inspection (which it has, so good on them).

[johnh875]

Originally Posted by wnut

If holding a GP is such a cash cow please explain how the Australian Grand Prix cost the taxpayers $49 million dollars to cover the loss made by the GP.

I think chillibowl has underestimated the sanction fee. I remember there were figures posted a while back that included $0 for Monaco and varying amounts for others. I haven't heard the exact amount but I think the Aust GP pays something in the order of the above figure (the loss). With the addition of new events it is obvious that there is still the will to pay despite the GFC which I had hoped would temper things a bit.

Also when chillibowl talks about 115,000 spectators and $350-400 per ticket, which GP achieves that? Some have that many on race day but not everybody is paying that amount which would typically be a grandstand seat for the weekend (wouldn't it?).

The other reason Melbourne loses money is it costs something in the order of $20m+ to set up and take down the track each year.

Back to the topic I would be disappointed if the Belgian GP was off the calendar. Perhaps by the time the Russian GP starts some others will have dropped off.

[strider]

Originally Posted by blaffer

Bernie today repeated his intention to remove Spa-Francorchamps from the calendar.

Just a matter of time, I'm afraid.(

I don't see that as any more of a threat to Spa than it is to Silverstone and Turkey. It's just one of those comments that Bernie likes to make from time to time to keep everyone on their toes.

[AndyS]

I think and hope Strider is right, although you never know with Bernie. I have to say I've felt that Spa looks vulnerable for a while now. The fees Bernie wants these days must be difficult for the likes of Spa.

[Knowlesy]

Bernie bores me.

[Born Racer]

Originally Posted by AndyS

I think and hope Strider is right, although you never know with Bernie. I have to say I've felt that Spa looks vulnerable for a while now. The fees Bernie wants these days must be difficult for the likes of Spa.

That's how I feel. It does look like the usual posturing (the same old strategy), but it must be extraordinarily difficult for circuits to justify those fees. Apparantly the turn-out at Spa this year was 50,000 something on race day which was way lower than expected/wanted/needed.

[ECW Dan Selby]

Yeah I was about to say this - when Bernie says 'jump', everyone jumps. It's quite funny. I don't just mean in the F1 circus, I also mean on here Not to sound like a wise old man here but this is just normal Bernie posturing that we've seen on this forum over the last few years, and will continue to.

The article itself doesn't actually really home in on Spa, it's just a much more attractive headline. It's just his usual threat of classic tracks having to buck up.

Selby

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by johnh875

Also when chillibowl talks about 115,000 spectators and $350-400 per ticket, which GP achieves that? Some have that many on race day but not everybody is paying that amount which would typically be a grandstand seat for the weekend (wouldn't it?).

sanction fees for the Canadian GP started this year at 15mill. here.

attendance for the race this year was 115,000 for race day and 300,000 plus through the turnstiles over the weekend. it was a sell out for the race and so 300K over the weekend suggests it was close to capacity each day. here.

ticket prices for 2011, which is very close to 2010 prices is here.

obviously i dont know who sat where etc, but for arguments sake lets say everyone of the 115,000 on race day was general admission at $80 for the day thats 9.2mill right there. again lets assume Saturday qualifying was close to being sold out so 100,000 people paying the general admission day price of $55 is another 5.5mill.

without even taking into account friday (another 85k paying the friday price) and food, concessions, and track side sponsorship just this basic calculation shows that they are very very close to covering the sanction fees based on each person paying the minimum on Sat. and Sun just through admission. the event itself recoups its money and then some.

why is not so in Australia? who knows, i suggested earlier its because of corruption and graft. one interesting fact from the sanctioning fees article is that 30% of ticket sales go directly to "Montreal and its partners". why it is not used to repay the government loans first is beyond me, but not paying back government (ie tax dollars) is such a common occurrence that people dont even question it anymore. its easier to say its BE who did it but its not BE who is robbing me its the city and its "partners" who get rich off an event paid for by the public. i would guess the case is similar to Australia.

[stripedcat]

Hopefully this is just Bernie playing his usual mind games. Losing Spa would be really bad for F1.

[chillibowl]

again and as always totally asking all the right questions, Joe Saward!

[blaffer]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

again and as always totally asking all the right questions, Joe Saward!

The right questions, sure...

...Monaco is exciting and spectacular. It is where the F1 business deals are done. Monza is all about speed and passion. Silverstone is at the epicentre of the F1 industry, and a great circuit; Spa is fabulous. But is that enough? It is a great circuit, but it is in the wrong place. Promoting it is tough. Should it be given a special deal? Perhaps. Should the Belgian government get involved? If it paid more, tickets would be cheaper and the grandstands would be full...

None of the historic circuits is safe anymore. Maybe they should organize themselves in an "Historic Grand Prix Circuits Association": if one of them comes under attack, they will react as a block. Bernie books them all, or none.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by strider

I don't see that as any more of a threat to Spa than it is to Silverstone and Turkey. It's just one of those comments that Bernie likes to make from time to time to keep everyone on their toes.

Well this really says it all, what is the world coming to when people actually read articles?

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

Bernie bores me.

People talking about Bernie bores me.

[Purist]

The funny thing is, we can already see the wavering in this house of cards.

Taxpayers have clearly voted that, to them, the Olympics mean exponentially more to them than does a Grand Prix, and the difference in the amount of TV coverage between the two bears this out as well. Here in the US, the difference between the Olympics and one GP in terms of TV coverage is something like 325 to 1. Even compared to two full season of F1, the ratio is still 8.4 to 1 in favor of the Olympics. And as I understand it, the world feed has VASTLY more Olympic coverage than the NBC affiliates show here, so in a country like the UK, the ratio of coverage for just one Olympic Games to two full seasons of F1 may well be 10 to 1 or more.

Beyond that though, China and Turkey WANT out, as they aren't willing to make a loss on their GPs. I could certainly see Australia being gone after 2015 (when its current contract runs out). From all the crap going on over here, there's hardly a guarantee that F1 will make a return to the US in 2012, or ever again. Russia has nearly a decade of failed attempts to garner a GP, and I'm not convinced that the latest venture has any more promise than previous ones. I have my doubts about Rome happening at all. Valencia will fall by the wayside as soon a Alonso loses popularity. I don't know if Malaysia will get the backing it needs for the upgrades Bernie is demanding from them, so Sepang may be gone in the not-too-distant future. The Indian government doesn't even consider F1 a sport, so that event WILL be relatively short-lived, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the same applies to Korea when the true costs are weighed and the current contract is up.

Mexico ain't gonna happen anytime soon. They have their hands full with the world's largest city sinking, and trying to keep some semblance of law and order in the midst of the drug war. Singapore may not last past 2012 given some recent rumblings. Abu Dhabi has to watch that they don't throw too much currency at bailing out Dubai, and I'm sure their boom has slowed down anyway with the global economic state.

About the only country we KNOW can, and likely will, have an F1 circuit ready to go in the near future is Qatar. And of course, once the oil barons get tired of this hobby, all that government backing for a lot of these new races will simply dry up. I'd have to say that for Malaysia and Bahrain at least, the sheen of having a shiny new Grand Prix has very much worn off.

And once this crop of countries bails, I don't see many, if any, new ones to take their places. In Asia, perhaps Indonesia. In Africa, South Africa, and maybe Nigeria, could have the ability to put something together. In Latin America, apart from Brazil, it's just Argentina and Mexico.

The trouble is, we're getting toward the bottom of the barrel in terms of countries of sufficient magnitude to even put together a Grand Prix in this day and age. You either have to have a VERY large country in size and/or population, or have gotten filthy rich off of some natural resource that is highly in demand. Well, we've covered an awful lot of the biggest countries and the most oil rich ones. Most of the rest are simply to impoverished, and as a result, too unstable, to be able to set up a Grand Prix within their borders. And for those nations, those conditions are NOT likely to change dramatically for decades to come.

[Purist]

In addition to all the above, the ONLY reason all of this hasn't fallen apart already is because the people involved (team personnel, promoters, track personnel) KNOW Bernie. Once he's out of the picture, NOBODY else is just going to be able to waltz in and make equal demands of the parties involved. If that person tries, I have no doubt that the teams and older tracks will just bail on the whole thing, and leave CVC holding the bag, and their loan debts. We've already seen three manufacturer teams up and leave, so we know F1 is already on precarious footing. Once Bernie is no longer there to hold this contraption together, the gears will grind to a screeching halt.

[dyewat808]

Originally Posted by Purist

The funny thing is, we can already see the wavering in this house of cards.

Taxpayers have clearly voted that, to them, the Olympics mean exponentially more to them than does a Grand Prix, and the difference in the amount of TV coverage between the two bears this out as well. Here in the US, the difference between the Olympics and one GP in terms of TV coverage is something like 325 to 1. Even compared to two full season of F1, the ratio is still 8.4 to 1 in favor of the Olympics. And as I understand it, the world feed has VASTLY more Olympic coverage than the NBC affiliates show here, so in a country like the UK, the ratio of coverage for just one Olympic Games to two full seasons of F1 may well be 10 to 1 or more.

Beyond that though, China and Turkey WANT out, as they aren't willing to make a loss on their GPs. I could certainly see Australia being gone after 2015 (when its current contract runs out). From all the crap going on over here, there's hardly a guarantee that F1 will make a return to the US in 2012, or ever again. Russia has nearly a decade of failed attempts to garner a GP, and I'm not convinced that the latest venture has any more promise than previous ones. I have my doubts about Rome happening at all. Valencia will fall by the wayside as soon a Alonso loses popularity. I don't know if Malaysia will get the backing it needs for the upgrades Bernie is demanding from them, so Sepang may be gone in the not-too-distant future. The Indian government doesn't even consider F1 a sport, so that event WILL be relatively short-lived, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the same applies to Korea when the true costs are weighed and the current contract is up.

Mexico ain't gonna happen anytime soon. They have their hands full with the world's largest city sinking, and trying to keep some semblance of law and order in the midst of the drug war. Singapore may not last past 2012 given some recent rumblings. Abu Dhabi has to watch that they don't throw too much currency at bailing out Dubai, and I'm sure their boom has slowed down anyway with the global economic state.

About the only country we KNOW can, and likely will, have an F1 circuit ready to go in the near future is Qatar. And of course, once the oil barons get tired of this hobby, all that government backing for a lot of these new races will simply dry up. I'd have to say that for Malaysia and Bahrain at least, the sheen of having a shiny new Grand Prix has very much worn off.

And once this crop of countries bails, I don't see many, if any, new ones to take their places. In Asia, perhaps Indonesia. In Africa, South Africa, and maybe Nigeria, could have the ability to put something together. In Latin America, apart from Brazil, it's just Argentina and Mexico.

The trouble is, we're getting toward the bottom of the barrel in terms of countries of sufficient magnitude to even put together a Grand Prix in this day and age. You either have to have a VERY large country in size and/or population, or have gotten filthy rich off of some natural resource that is highly in demand. Well, we've covered an awful lot of the biggest countries and the most oil rich ones. Most of the rest are simply to impoverished, and as a result, too unstable, to be able to set up a Grand Prix within their borders. And for those nations, those conditions are NOT likely to change dramatically for decades to come.

Perfectly put - it is short-term expansion that Bernie is looking at here by trying to expand so quickly.

Not only that, but the fact that most of the new tracks are the same these days means none of them have something "special" to offer - at least not for TV coverage. And when you have other, arguably bigger sports like the Olympics...

F1 is going to have to go through a big change at some point, change its appeal or the way it works, or get rid of Bernie, to survive at all.

Pessimistic, but it you have to wonder...

[wnut]

The biggest problem with Spa is it is already built and nobody can be gouged a few hundred million dollars to build it!

[1200Datto27]

Originally Posted by wnut

If holding a GP is such a cash cow please explain how the Australian Grand Prix cost the taxpayers $49 million dollars to cover the loss made by the GP.

From my reading of the figures, the $49m is the AGPC's yearly operating budget (covering the MotoGP as well) that is provided by the state government, the same way that other corporations under the state governments purview are funded.

The AGPC does not have an income of it's own, with all revenues raised by the GP's being returned directly back to the government via general revenue.

[wnut]

No its the F1 race only!

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/21/victorias-roads-paved-with-grand-prix-red-ink/

"The Australian Grand Prix Corporation’s annual report released last Thursday revealed a record loss on this year’s F1 event of $49.2 million and more than $185 million over the past five years.
The Age, owned by Fairfax Media, which Walker chaired for several years as well as having been the AGPC’s only chairman, totted up the bill back to Melbourne’s first F1 GP in 1996 and reported that it topped $235 million.
Costs keep going up including Ecclestone's sanction fee, although the precise amount of that remains secret but revenues are on the slippery slide.
Corporate and grandstand sales have shrunk. Attendance figures are imprecise and widely doubted.
....

Its research takes in 55 countries that account for 95% of world GDP and it has found the average global audience for the live race telecast of Melbourne’s GP to be about 50 million viewers at best"

Yes it is a reliable source!

[johnh875]

Thanks for the detailed reply chillibowl. $15m fee reflects the circumstances of the race going back to Montreal, and is quite a lot less than the Melbourne fee from what I remember. To play devil's advocate, is 115k a normal attendance or a bonus after the gap?

Montreal certainly signed their deal at the right time, although if Purist's predictions come to pass more venues might be able to scale their fees back also.

wnut I have also heard something to the effect of what 1200Datto27 explains re how the AGPC finances work, and this was from someone who is in a position to know. This was a couple of years ago and I do not remember the details.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by johnh875

To play devil's advocate, is 115k a normal attendance or a bonus after the gap?

in past years, if memory serves, 300k over the weekend was also the norm. as for the future, considering how successful this year's event was (and past years) everyone is anticipating a bigger more crowded weekend next year.

[johnh875]

Lets hope so, the competitive state of the championship can't be hurting either.