{"id":423,"date":"2017-09-07T00:17:11","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T00:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.com\/?p=423"},"modified":"2017-09-07T00:23:07","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T00:23:07","slug":"ss-bos-column-september-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/?p=423","title":{"rendered":"SS – BOS – Column – September 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Business of Speed<\/strong>
\nThe Money Behind the Motorsports Industry<\/em>
\nBy: Tim Frost
\nDate: September 2017<\/p>\n

This month we will look at the facilities from an event programming perspective.<\/p>\n

The business of generating money at a major race track is multi-faceted.\u00a0 Historically, it has centered around two to three key weekends a year.\u00a0 The Sunday feature events were top tier series (Nascar Monster Cup, Verizon IndyCar) with support races (Nascar Xfinity, Indy Lights) running on Saturday.\u00a0 Admissions, luxury suites, concessions, sponsorship, and broadcast fees make up the bulk of revenue.\u00a0 The current economic environment has challenged these line items.<\/p>\n

Hospitality related sales remain strong.\u00a0 Camping and RV bookings are solid. Many attend for an entire three-day period over the weekend.\u00a0 Going to the race track is considered a unique experience.\u00a0 RV dealers are renting turnkey units making it hassle free.\u00a0 Glamping with luxury tents has appeared at a few tracks. \u00a0Stages have built to host concerts and temporary retail stores provide supplies.<\/p>\n

These areas have not gone unnoticed by corporate sponsors.\u00a0 This can serve as an important part of trackside activation.\u00a0 Developing a relationship with race fans away from the racing in a casual setting result in a tight bond.\u00a0 Camping World\u2019s relationship with the Nascar truck series and events is the best example.<\/p>\n

Successful track operators are booking events outside their major races.\u00a0 Venue utilization is critical.<\/p>\n

The concert \/ festival business is exploding.\u00a0 Well established organizers are taking their acts on the road.\u00a0 Many are taking place at race tracks.\u00a0 There are many reasons: infrastructure, security, municipal relationships, and lots of space.\u00a0 The ability to access to the site before and after allows for an efficient setup process.\u00a0 Equipment needed to build and operate the concerts may be owned by facility or sourced with existing vendors.<\/p>\n

The Austin 360 Amphitheater at Circuit of the Americas is the best example of a permanent concert venue at race track.\u00a0 It has a 14,000 person capacity with 6,700 reserved seats and expansive lawn seating areas.\u00a0 They will host almost 40 events annually attracting almost 500,000 visitors annually. This total exceeds the number of race fans for races on the 3.47 mile road circuit.<\/p>\n

Almost every other major tracks host large music events: Rolling Stones \u2013 Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Electric Daisy Carnival \u2013 Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Country 500 \u2013 Daytona International Speedway, and Faster Horses Festival \u2013 Michigan International Speedway.<\/p>\n

The ties between racing and music are deep in the roots of country and rock and roll.\u00a0 Mike Curb \u2013 Curb Records is a long time sponsor of championship drivers and teams at all forms of racing from the Indy 500 to the Chili Bowl.\u00a0 Big Machine Records\u2019 Scott Borchetta has backed the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for many years, including artists performing at the track.<\/p>\n

It is important for these venues to operate year-round diversifying their revenue streams.<\/p>\n

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Business of Speed The Money Behind the Motorsports Industry By: Tim Frost Date: September 2017 This month we will look at the facilities from an event programming perspective. The business of generating money at a major race track is multi-faceted.\u00a0 Historically, it has centered around two to three key weekends a year.\u00a0 The Sunday feature […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425,"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions\/425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businessofspeed.speedwaysonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}