Canada to return in 2010

[Brogan]

According to an article in Planet-F1, Bernie has stated that Canada will once more be on the calendar in 2010.

"We will return to Canada in 2010 - I know everyone connected with Formula One loves this Grand Prix," Ecclestone told German magazine Motorsport Aktuell.

Good news I'm sure everyone will agree.

As we know, Canada was dropped after failing to reach a "financial agreement".
Or, to put it another way, for not paying Bernie the exorbitant fee he wanted.

I an only assume the circuit owners and/or local government have capitulated and decided it's better to hold a GP and make a loss than not hold one at all as I doubt Bernie has offered them more favourable terms.

Apparently there will also be a US GP in 2011. We shall see...

Source: Ecclestone: Canada will return in 2010

 

[Speshal]

Good news indeed

 

[teabagyokel]

I'm going to take a punt and say there is an alterior motive here.

The biggest sport event in the world, the FIFA World Cup, will take place between 11 June and 11 July next summer. It would be difficult for Bernie to hold a race that would sell tickets at the same rate during a World Cup if attention was on South Africa.

Now that means there must be either a 4 week break in the F1, or there must be a Grand Prix in the biggest county in the World that doesn't give a fiddler's fart about football and will not qualify: Canada.

It simply comes down to whether he wants to jeopardise his TV viewing across the world or at least have the locals interested in his show! The World Cup does have that effect (remember the 2006 British GP Qualifying was brought forward for England vs Paraguay) and Bernie knows it.

I've missed a few Canadian GPs due to the World Cup. Cross fingers the game will be North Korea vs Costa Rica when Canadian GP is on, and I can see it!

 

[RickD]

Interesting point teabag and one I hope is right, a GP would be the perfect tonic for all those boring windbags punting a bag of wind around a field, it would actually make me turn on the TV at least once in 4 weeks.

Football - The most boring thing to watch on the planet (and that includes watching F1 races like Monaco and Valencia).

 

[bogaTYR]

makes sense TBY. its interesting how political and predictable some parts of F1 are. maybe one can state too that gilles villeneuve is considered a better F1 venue then any US circuit?

 

[teabagyokel]

Well, I think there isn't a 'suitable' circuit in the USA!

Like I say, back in 2006, Bernie had 3 GPs during the World Cup and qualifying to the British GP was forced forward to 12:00 because the England match in Frankfurt kicked off at 2. I'm utterly sure he doesn't want to play second fiddle to the World Cup, hence the Canadian GP has come in, generally, during the tournament! Ditto the Euros in the other even years.

I might be wrong, but I suspect that may be part of it!

 

[Brogan]

Some interesting comments from James Allen regarding this.

“Apparently the proposal was about $75-million over five years,” says the story, “Much less than the offer rejected by Ecclestone last November. It is also thought the deal included a promise to pay Ecclestone the money he was owed under the previous arrangement.

“Last November, the city offered Ecclestone a five-year package for $110-million in sanctioning fees as well as 75 per cent of the first $10-million in profit and 25 per cent of the rest. In addition, the estimated $20-million from the race’s advertising and luxury box revenue would have gone to Ecclestone. His counter offer of a guaranteed $175-million over five years to keep Montreal on the F1 calendar was too steep for the city and the race was pulled.”

And therein lies the problem with F1.
The fees to host a GP are astronomical and rising above inflation every year.

Ecclestone's demand for $175 million over 5 years, which is $35 million per GP is just avarice taken to the extreme.

Source: Montreal offers $75 million to get F1 race back

 

[cider_and_toast]

To put it even futher in perspective, When you consider that track side advertising and TV revenue are allready taken by CVC.

The only way a circuit can make money is to sell tickets and corporate packages.

Stall holders will also be charged a fee to sell the merchandise at the event which is why you pay £40 for a burger and a pint and £120 for a genuine polyester T-shirt.

Not only can the organisors not meet the demands but what cash they can raise is wrung out of only one source and that is the poor sod who has shelled out to got to the track. Is it any wonder that attendance is down around the globe while TV viewers have remained reasonably stable.

 

[bogaTYR]

lots of money indeed.

canada has an attendance of about 300 000 during race weekend so 35 mil means a break even ticket price of 115 dollar. supposing all the costs would have to be covered by ticket sales.

but if you look at the prices canada charged, a general admittance ticket was around 140 dollar, bronze tickets at around 300 dollar and silver tickets at around 450 dollar. no idea what the gold packages cost.

simple conclusion, if all attendance would pay an general admittance ticket and bernie would charge 35 mil per race. the profit for the organizer on ticket sales only in this scenario is 10.5 mil dollar! this is 35 dollar profit per sold ticket or a 25% margin. again, this percentage is if only general attendance tickets would be sold. add to that the business seats and the bronze, silver and gold packages plus the income from the souvenir and eat and drink.... just for comparison, the profit margin for the organizer on a rock concert is about 5%.

if you look in this way at the the offer of the government, 110 mil for 5 years, this comes down to a break even ticket price of 74 dollar. which means on a general admittance ticket of 140 dollar, the profit for the government goes to 66 dollar per ticket or 48%! 20 mil in total. and again, not taking into account the packages or the stall holders.

also. people seem to have missed this:

Ecclestone said "we should revert back to the deal we originally had - 47 per cent of the television rights and they can go where they like. We should be paying a lot less to the teams and charging the circuits a lot less".

http://www.motorauthority.com/f1/bernie ... _7130.html

 

[Galahad]

Circuits have plenty of other expenses to pay as well as Bernie's fees.

Where taxpayers' money is involved it's never a straightforward calculation.

 

[RickD]

canada has an attandance of about 300 000 during race weekend...

Is this the actual attendance or is this the total number of people over 3 days (therefore including those holding weekend tickets)?

 

[bogaTYR]

canada has an attandance of about 300 000 during race weekend...

Is this the actual attendance or is this the total number of people over 3 days (therefore including those holding weekend tickets)?

total over the 3 days weekend. racing day has a max attendance of 150 000.

 

[bogaTYR]

Circuits have plenty of other expenses to pay as well as Bernie's fees.

Where taxpayers' money is involved it's never a straightforward calculation.

very true, but these expenses are paid from the profit events like an F1 race make.

i just tried to give a little view of the other side. just the statement ticket prices are too expensive cos of CVC seems a bit too limited to me. you can even go as far and try to see what the economical value of a race is. but then it gets truly complicated. really complicated...

 

[RickD]

canada has an attandance of about 300 000 during race weekend...

Is this the actual attendance or is this the total number of people over 3 days (therefore including those holding weekend tickets)?

total over the 3 days weekend. racing day has a max attendance of 150 000.

That's what I thought. most people go to a Grand Prix to watch the race, not sure how much tickets for just the Friday or Saturday are, but guessing there aren't many of them sold.

In this case, you would need to work on the 150,000 as the true figure rather than 300,000. This makes ticket sales a much less lucrative option for the circuit and can see why they need proping up by the govenrment due to the extortionate CVC fees.

 

[teabagyokel]

It is essentially impossible to make a profit out of Grand Prix for an organiser because anything sellable is owned by Bernie! Hence, there are less and less circuits willing to pay to host an event (they are commercial entities!) Greed is ripping F1 apart!

 

[Speshal]

It is essentially impossible to make a profit out of Grand Prix for an organiser because anything sellable is owned by Bernie! Hence, there are less and less circuits willing to pay to host an event (they are commercial entities!) Greed is ripping F1 apart!

This makes some depressing reading...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_On ... cquisition