Post by Johnny Canuck10 races = 750,000 Cart fans at Amerian races? 75,000 per race? Cart?
in the US? More like 25,000 to 30,000 avg. maybe, but you must be
dreaming for that 75,000 number.
Smokey on the beach
Three day attendance numbers (again ... for those who have trouble
reading, I did not say paid attendance, and I did not say 2,000,000
individuals because some will attend all three days, some two, and some
only race day): CART officially says 2.6 million. I do have some problem
accepting those numbers because CART and some of its promoters have been
caught with some funny numbers (Cleveland's a good example).
However,
No question about the three Canadian races at around 160,000 each. No
question that Surfer's Paradise draws 250,000 to 300,000. No question
that the two Mexican races come in at about 350,000 total. The two
European races this year total 100,000. That's an average of 150,000 over
eight races or 1.2 million. Three day attendance at troubled venues like
Milwaukee, Laguna, Cleveland are around 60,000 per (about 30-35,000 race
day). Venues like Long Beach draw more than enough to create a series
average of about 75,000 per for the US races.
None of this is myopia regarding CART. If they can't make money with that
attendance, then they are running their business poorly. That's all I
said, it's the truth, and I should have known better than to post in this
NG given that everyone here either thinks CART's the bomb, or they're IRL
shills. The reality is that neither series has been run well in the past
five years, they both bleed red ink, and of the two ... the better chance
of turning that around lies with CART and the substantially better
attendance than the IRL.
Your numbers are still wildly high, but that is okay. There are not 350,000
people in Mexico purchasing race tickets at Canadian/American prices.
Perhaps you would care to look at it in an adult manner. What the the
revenue from ticket sales? How much of it went to construct and deconstruct
the track and the grandstands and how much made its way to CART? Of the
funds that do go to CART, how much is spent on travel and freight? To
compare all of that to IRL simply getting a date at an existing track a few
hundred truck miles from Indianapolis is like comparing apples and gumball
machines.
Sure CART "invites" many thousands of fans to the street carnivals to make
it look like a major league event to the TV viewer and enhance their image.
350,000 in Mexico? 480,000 in Canada? Sure, if it makes you feel better.
Supposedly CART wrote a 14,000 dollar check to Miami for the 14,000 tickets
sold. At 14,000 per event they would have to have a lot of races to come up
to 2,600,000.
They IRL fans have no worries whatsoever about the IRL running in 2004. The
CART fans are looking for Ecclestone or Forsythe or some financiers to buy
the mess so they can be sure it does operate in 2004.
I figure the only thing that CART has not yet purchased or leased is a
satellite in orbit. Perhaps they can rent some time on satellites and beam
the races everywhere and claim 6,000,000,000 fans the way that Speed Channel
does it.
Fans and ticket sales, TV viewers, sponsors, and the cost of getting a venue
and getting to that venue form a complex equation. Since nobody, and I mean
nobody, has the books on 2 series and 40 teams you cannot tell. Even if
somebody was a senior IRS executive they could not even tell.
The fact that MPH stock price seems to find a new low each week tells you
all you really need to know about the outlook for CART. On the other hand
there are many hundreds of corporations that could drop about 10 big ones on
CART to be the title sponsor. That would be most excellent. And far more
likely than any individual or group buying them.