863 replies to this topic

[BoozeBaron]

Well, IMHO, here's the true test of the track itself (speaking as someone who used to be next door, to the now defunct PPIR) what happens between now and next NOV and F1 comes to race?

Just got this from COA ... No interest to me, b/c I'm only interested in F1 ... but will be interesting to see the ticket sales for this, vs. F1 (and others to come)...

GRAND-AM Road Racing Coming to Austin!
http://us2.campaign-...mp;e=7989993e76

BTW, in the 'FWIW column'... those of you banging on about UT Football drawing 80,000+ per weekend ... IIRC when I lived in Austin, it was like $55-$90 a ticket? Whereas, decent F1 seats are more like $850.00? up to $2000 ($5000+ for Paddock Club) - Loads of difference between some drunk frat boys and diehard F1 enthusiasts that travel the world to see a F1 race (I can say that, as I was once a drunk frat boy!) but now converted

Edited by BoozeBaron, 13 December 2012 - 20:22.

[AustinF1]

Well, IMHO, here's the true test of the track itself (speaking as someone who used to be next door, to the now defunct PPIR) what happens between now and next NOV and F1 comes to race?

Just got this from COA ... No interest to me, b/c I'm only interested in F1 ... but will be interesting to see the ticket sales for this, vs. F1 (and others to come)...

GRAND-AM Road Racing Coming to Austin!
http://us2.campaign-...mp;e=7989993e76

The Grand Am spokesman said in this Statesman article that they expect about 30K for the weekend. Sounds about right from everything I've read.

http://www.statesman...ircuit-i/nTTcK/

What's funny is that back when COTA made the claim that they'd draw over 1,000,000 fans by May, the numbers they used to get there were as follows:

The Grand-Am auto event will take place Feb. 28 through March 3. Promoters estimate a maximum attendance of 300,000 during those four days.
The MotoGP motorcycle event will take place April 19 - 21. Promoters estimate a maximum attendance of 225,000 during those four days.
The V8 Supercars auto event will take place May 17 - 19. Promoters estimate a maximum attendance of 300,000 during those three days.

http://www.kxan.com/...-1m-fans-by-may

Hell, in 2011 Grand Am's total attendance for every weekend of the season was only ~500k (~41K avg weekend attendance). MotoGP & V8 Supercars don't draw those numbers either.

Also, MotoGP is only a 3-day weekend, not 4.

Edited by AustinF1, 14 December 2012 - 19:17.

[AustinF1]

those of you banging on about UT Football drawing 80,000+ per weekend ... IIRC when I lived in Austin, it was like $55-$90 a ticket? Whereas, decent F1 seats are more like $850.00? up to $2000 ($5000+ for Paddock Club) - Loads of difference between some drunk frat boys and diehard F1 enthusiasts that travel the world to see a F1 race (I can say that, as I was once a drunk frat boy!) but now converted

F1 tickets here ranged from $159 to ~$4500 for Paddock Club.

UTFB tickets this year ranged from $60 to $110. But thousands of fans make alumni association donations tied to seating preference and priority for away games. These are usually anywhere from $1000 to 10s of thousands, or 100s of thousands for luxury boxes. There were also 6 home games, not one, with an average attendance of 100,884. Games were drawing well over the 80,000 you mentioned way back in the late 70s and early 80s. Hell, there were 46,000 people at this year's pre-season intrasquad scrimmage.

Edited by AustinF1, 14 December 2012 - 20:27.

[loki]

The $52M increase is what was projected by COTA. It's not what was realized. The actual observed gain was less than half of the projection.



http://www.kxan.com/...ent-for-f1-race

What's wrong with the process is that the payment is based on the recipient's projection and not on actual performance.

You may wish to read the piece again. Those aren'[t COTA numbers, they are from other sources including the Austin Convention and Visitor's Bureau. Also, this payment is going to be based on actual tax revenue and not projections. It won't be difficult to ascertain as the business entities have to report the income and the taxes to the state. As an aside, while $52 is good, for event of this scale in some markets motorsport, specifically Cup, have impacts of more than $100 mil confirmed through the tax agencies. I can guarantee that Cup fans are much more thrifty as a whole than those that may have went to Austin. For example Vegas gets about $140 mil from the Cup date, or about $1600 per person. The $52 mil for the GP is not out of the question.

[loki]

BTW, in the 'FWIW column'... those of you banging on about UT Football drawing 80,000+ per weekend ... IIRC when I lived in Austin, it was like $55-$90 a ticket? Whereas, decent F1 seats are more like $850.00? up to $2000 ($5000+ for Paddock Club) - Loads of difference between some drunk frat boys and diehard F1 enthusiasts that travel the world to see a F1 race (I can say that, as I was once a drunk frat boy!) but now converted

College football in the US is far, far more popular with the mainstream than F1 or even motorsports as a whole. Football in general is an order of magnitude more popular. Referring to UT football as the domain of "drunk frat boys" is so not right it's not even wrong. Make no mistake, football rules down in that neck of the woods. Particularly UT football. One that has spent any time there would well know that. Frat boys aren't a significant number attending college football games.

[AustinF1]

You may wish to read the piece again. Those aren'[t COTA numbers, they are from other sources including the Austin Convention and Visitor's Bureau. Also, this payment is going to be based on actual tax revenue and not projections. It won't be difficult to ascertain as the business entities have to report the income and the taxes to the state. As an aside, while $52 is good, for event of this scale in some markets motorsport, specifically Cup, have impacts of more than $100 mil confirmed through the tax agencies. I can guarantee that Cup fans are much more thrifty as a whole than those that may have went to Austin. For example Vegas gets about $140 mil from the Cup date, or about $1600 per person. The $52 mil for the GP is not out of the question.

COTA's estimate (performed by their agent, Don Hoyte / TexasEconomicImpact.com) was $49.8M in incremental increase from hotels. The actual incremental increase was $22.3M.

http://www.kxan.com/...ent-for-f1-race

I can't remember how we got started on the $52M figure, & I'm too lazy to go back & look it up. Anyway, that's not what COTA is projecting for its eco impact. More like $300M, which is likely an exaggeration as well.

The payment has already been made, based on the projection, not the actual observed numbers. They have 18 months to study the impact. What they do if the actuals fall short of the projections, I do not know.

Edited by AustinF1, 14 December 2012 - 20:16.

[BoozeBaron]

College football in the US is far, far more popular with the mainstream than F1 or even motorsports as a whole. Football in general is an order of magnitude more popular. Referring to UT football as the domain of "drunk frat boys" is so not right it's not even wrong. Make no mistake, football rules down in that neck of the woods. Particularly UT football. One that has spent any time there would well know that. Frat boys aren't a significant number attending college football games.

Went to UT and TAMU and played (US) Football my entire life - Also spoke Greek at the time... so you don't need to tell me about TX Football and Friday Night Lights - My point was, that is exactly how you say it is (and how I tried to say in my short midnight quip) that football rules the roost in TX, and always will - but F1 fans are a different breed, worldwide. I see it clearly now here in the UK.

Wait, just re-reading your comment - So, on a viewership basis - you're saying College football draws more (in both crowds and TV audience) per season, than F1 races?

Our 12 seat exec box 'purchase' was for over $385,000 at COTA - When I converted Paddock Club tix from Euros to USD, it was over $5,000/ea - UT games don't charge that, regardless of whose math you're using... I know UT alums contribute allot as well... Just saying, it's not an apples to apples comparison - I lived in Austin for 7 years, and TX for 14 - I know the scene and it ain't F1... (and slants more towards drunk frat boys) but of course the other 90% are Alumni, preps, yups, and fans... But worldwide 'mainstream' goes to F1 over NCAA...

IMHO

[AustinF1]

But worldwide 'mainstream' goes to F1 over NCAA...

IMHO

Yeah, I think that's right, too. For the purposes of this discussion, though, we're just talking about Austin, right?

[loki]

Wait, just re-reading your comment - So, on a viewership basis - you're saying College football draws more (in both crowds and TV audience) per season, than F1 races?

In the US it does. By an order of magnitude. As a whole college football draws more people to the events than F1 does worldwide. Let's say 120k per race day. That's 2.4 million event attendees per season. An estimate published last year states around 37 million people went to college football games in 2011. With 808 games that year the average attendance was just over 47k. With several able to consistently draw 100k at home games. No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of drunk frat boys...;)

http://rivals.yahoo....ug=ycn-10567975

Edited by loki, 15 December 2012 - 04:25.

[loki]

COTA's estimate (performed by their agent, Don Hoyte / TexasEconomicImpact.com) was $49.8M in incremental increase from hotels. The actual incremental increase was $22.3M.

http://www.kxan.com/...ent-for-f1-race

I can't remember how we got started on the $52M figure, & I'm too lazy to go back & look it up. Anyway, that's not what COTA is projecting for its eco impact. More like $300M, which is likely an exaggeration as well.

The payment has already been made, based on the projection, not the actual observed numbers. They have 18 months to study the impact. What they do if the actuals fall short of the projections, I do not know.

I hadn't seen that yet. Though it looks like the payment was right in line with what the number are from Smith. What would be interesting (to me, anyway) is how the Austin metro area was impacted when hotel prices were high and many got rooms outside the area.

[AustinF1]

I hadn't seen that yet. Though it looks like the payment was right in line with what the number are from Smith. What would be interesting (to me, anyway) is how the Austin metro area was impacted when hotel prices were high and many got rooms outside the area.

Who's Smith? Sorry, there has been so much to read lately that I'm having a hard time keeping it all straight.

Re: the second part of your post, according to the Expedia.com/Hotels.com folks who talked with us a couple of times asking for help selling room inventory in the last few weeks before the race, thousands of hotel rooms went unsold & prices dropped in the last few weeks as rooms became "unblocked". Then some of the inventory got sold. Downtown service industry business was off for many businesses during F1 week, partly due to the undersold hotels, and I've heard partly because many locals avoided downtown thinking it would be overcrowded. Apparently it wasn't. I only went downtown on Thursday night, for the "1" premier. I didn't think much about it at the time, but I remember remarking to my wife that it was very quiet for a Thursday night, which is usually pretty busy in the Austin entertainment districts.

Edited by AustinF1, 15 December 2012 - 06:17.

[BoozeBaron]

In the US it does. By an order of magnitude. As a whole college football draws more people to the events than F1 does worldwide. Let's say 120k per race day. That's 2.4 million event attendees per season. An estimate published last year states around 37 million people went to college football games in 2011. With 808 games that year the average attendance was just over 47k. With several able to consistently draw 100k at home games. No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of drunk frat boys...;)

http://rivals.yahoo....ug=ycn-10567975

You've taken me out of context (or I wasn't clear) ...

International viewership, is higher for F1 than all College Football -

http://blogs.bettor....1-season-a53771

Out of the 5 top events last year, it was the Olympics, World Cup, RUGBY World Cup, F1 and the Super Bowl - there are only 330M ppl in USA and not all watch college football - vs 527M worldwide who watched F1 (and that's 2010) Given DRS and 'more passing' - and 2 more races added, suspect 2012 will be higher -

Once Bernie gets TATA sorted with Wifi worldwide - you'll see that probably double over the next 10 years

Edited by BoozeBaron, 16 December 2012 - 20:00.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Those several hundred million figures are always a bit weird, I don't know where they get that from.

On a per-race basis you're looking at about 60mil live viewers for F1, swelling to 80 in some cases. Championship finales in primetime, that kind of thing.

[bourbon]

Was everything really as bad as I'm reading for those who went? I didn't have any problems at all booking tickets or a room. I bought tickets straight of the COTA link through Ticketmaster. Yes, I paid face value, so how cheap did they end up going for? I was in T3 and I think the tickets were $325 each for all weekend. More than Indy but I considered I was helping pay for the facilities (perminent bathrooms aside, they were fantastic) I rented a room in a locals residence for $200. Not bad at all to me since it was 5-8 minutes drive to the Expo Center and I had a maid on hand complete with hot meals served!

I had a great trip as well. I drove in from San Antonio and booked early, so I got a top hotel at a fantastic price and the rental car was dirt cheap when I reserved it. Loved the GS seat - although it was pretty expensive. But the constructors celebration, the podium, start/finish, binocular view into the garages complete with sounds - and the pitstops made it worth it.

That said, it is still expensive to travel in the USA - even at the best of times. In the end, I could definitely do Europe at that price and I am fairly certain that is what I would do if I go to a GP next year.

Edited by bourbon, 16 December 2012 - 19:37.