COTA Austin - construction and infrastructure

[xpensive]

...
This is the strangest theory that I have read in a long time. The known facts make it completely clear that...

I agree, it is important to have proper sources available when one portrays his/hers oplnions as facts.

[WhiteBlue]

...
This is the strangest theory that I have read in a long time. The known facts make it completely clear that...

I agree, it is important to have proper sources available when one portrays his/hers oplnions as facts.

Perhaps you support your personal attack by proper quotation. Please quote me on a case where I have posted opinion as fact. The above quote does not qualify. It simply refers to facts that are known to the readers of the thread. One needs not repeat facts established in earlier parts of the thread again and again. I'll be happy to discuss this in a separate thread because IMO it is off topic here.

[hairy_scotsman]

Then it becomes clear what can be considered information and what is your own theory. At least that is the way you will be respected as a participant on this board.

Glass houses, gugsy. Glass houses.

Regardless, I guess I'm glad my posts have been liberally sprinkled with a lot of I think's, in my opinion's, and if so's - just in case, you know.

No worries, I think it would be pretty clear to anyone reading that we're all just stating opinions formulated based on everything we've read, heard, or seen.

[Ray]

Doesn't matter who's right here. I'M GOING TO TEXAS FOR A FORMULA 1 RACE!!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!

[strad]

We do know that this whole thing is over, right? That the race is on?

Whole thing could still go in the toilet.
Ray: I hope you are .

[hairy_scotsman]

We do know that this whole thing is over, right? That the race is on?

Whole thing could still go in the toilet.
Ray: I hope you are .

Indeed.

Looks like the 10-year guarantee went out the window with the old contract:

http://www.pitpass.com/45421-Ecclestone ... r-10-years

[Pup]

$0.50 says that the sticking point to getting the contract signed was the annual increase. Another $0.50 says that the settlement was for both sides to agree to just deal with it later.

That and the pink tutu thing I mentioned earlier.

[bhall]

Doesn't matter who's right here. I'M GOING TO TEXAS FOR A FORMULA 1 RACE!!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!

I'll be there. If there's no F1 race, we can race our vehicles.

[WhiteBlue]

$0.50 says that the sticking point to getting the contract signed was the annual increase. Another $0.50 says that the settlement was for both sides to agree to just deal with it later.

It would be a surprise if Bernie cuts a deal for a multi year period without a fixed annual rate rise. AFAIK he has never done that.

If it is not 10 years it is likely to be for 5-7 years. It also means that their METF application can only run for that time. I doubt that a follow up application for another period can be done. It would be contrary to the purpose of the fund. So if we assume 5 years they just lost $125m revenues compared to the old contract duration from METF. They also lost the finance for $25m from METF which I had estimated at $1.5m.

Bernie is known to be pretty flexible on such issues. As long as he receives the money and gets his increase he doesn't care much about the length of the contract. He knows very well that no promoter likes to loose a GP and that the price can only go up due to new circuit projects being undertaken every year. He will have always many more F1 capable tracks than GPs to award. With the right strategy he can shift the Austin GP to Mexico, Argentina or another US venue like Long Beach.

To me the CotA strategy points to an early F1 exit from F1 racing. They will probably run F1 for some years to become a famous racing venue and trigger the infra structure updates. After some years they will continue without the F1 race which would become increasingly expensive, particularly without the METF money.

So fans who want to enjoy the show as often as possible should not hesitate to book, I guess.

[hairy_scotsman]

More of Bernie's words from the Statesman:

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/ ... ula_austin

[bhall]

I agreed with everything Bernie Ecclestone said.

However, it's impossible to have more grands prix in the U.S. - or anywhere, for that matter - and maintain a tenable overall schedule without doing away with some of the "traditional" venues or some of Bernie's New World cash-cows. I don't think that's happening anytime soon.

I'd also like to see greater television coverage in America. As much as I enjoy Speed's presentation of F1, it ain't exactly easy to find on the dial. But, I don't see anything changing in that regard, either, because motor racing's popularity in general is on the decline here in the States. Even NASCAR's numbers are waning. The NFL is simply killing everything.

[xpensive]

This has been ventilated before obviously, but I fear that the original problem is CVC's greed, which comes from MrM's giving away of F1's commercial rights to MrE for a plate of beans, who rather promptly sold said rights for tenfold the money.

What is driving F1 to bizarre government subsidies and out of the civilized world, is the quest for money to finance the interest on the loan, which was taken to pay MrE for the rights given to him by MrM. Utterly perverted if you ask me.

[bhall]

Well, we all know that Mr.(S&)M wasn't exactly shy about being spanked. In this case, sadly, we've all felt it.

[WhiteBlue]

It is very likely that Bernie did some more negotiations on TV deals. Joe Saward made some comments about that last week on his blog.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/12/ ... -americas/

The latest talk comes from the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, which has a reporter who is close to Bernie. The magazine is reporting that there could be three or four races in the United States of America in the future. Bernie says that there are nine races in Europe and that North America is about the same size. This is true if one adds the United States population of 300 million, to Canada’s 34 million and Mexico’s 112 million. This makes around 450 million, while the European Union total is 500 million.

The advantage is that the United States is a fully-developed consumer market, where there is money to spend on racing and there is a big gap in the market because of the troubles that have weakened open-wheeler racing in the last 15 years. Rather than waiting for the Middle East and Asia to develop, Formula 1 might be well-advised to move into the United States on a bigger scale, with at least one race in California (the obvious choice is to find a promoter to take over Long Beach). Much would depend on the success of Austin and the new race in New Jersey. Formula 1 did have three races in the US in 1982 one in Long Beach, one in Detroit and one in Las Vegas, and there were also races in Canada and Brazil, making a total of five in the American timezones. That was more than a quarter of the races, so there is no reason why there could not be a similar proportion in the future. The problem is finding the promoters who can see how to raise the money, particularly at the moment with many of the US states in a sorry financial situation and public money being hard to come by. There is no doubt that the two US races will be joined at some point soon by Mexico, in addition to Brazil and Canada, as usual. Whether it will get beyond that remains to be seen. The cynic in me says that Mr E is probably negotiating a new TV deal in the US, but I don’t see any reason why it would not be a great idea for F1 to expand in the US – if someone can be found to pay the bills. That happened in the unlikely environment of Texas, and has happened too in New Jersey, so why not California or Colorado as well? Using the business model of a Grand Prix increasing property values in an area could lure in some people who own land that they feel is undervalued. And when it comes to big developments – as we have seen in India – the odd $30 million is not such a huge amount.

I also find the idea of large scale property development interesting as a promotional tool for F1. If you combine it with something like the METF of Texas things could become easier. I remain convinced that Indy as an F1 venue did not fail due to the Michelin disaster but due to the reluctance to look at alternative or new sponsorship schemes. Hellmund IMO did a very good job in that regard.

But ultimately F1's future in the Americas hinges on the ability to personalize the interest of the TV public. Ferrari do this by their brand image in Italy. It is sad that the last try by USF1 failed. It is typical for F1's struggle in America that the root cause for the failure was the reluctance to absorb some existing international resources from the top level into the US team.

It may be a better alternative to do some grass root driver building as Ferrari does with Canadian carting star Lance Stroll and Ron Dennis once did with Hamilton.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/m ... le2274857/

That strategy still looks quite promising if you consider the success that Antony Hamilton and McLaren so far have with Nyck De Fries.

http://paddocktalk.com/news/html/story-178849.html

The question is who would invest $2-3m in a driver development program now which will come to fruition only on 6-8 years time. You need a strong international brand like Red Bull but with obvious American identity to pull this off.

This is ultimately the reason why Bernie keeps failing in his desire to tap the US market. You have to do all the marketing work and convince the right people to make the long term investment into drivers and a team as well. And when you see that they make fundamental mistakes you have to give them good advise perhaps coupled with a bit of an incentive instead of shooting them down.

Bernie of all experts should have known that Windsor would not succeed with the level of F1 technical experts he had in his team. That would have been the perfect time to step in, invest some seed money as a silent partner or have someone else do it. I just hope that Austin and New Jersey will succeed and that someone in F1 starts making the right steps for success in America.

[WhiteBlue]

..I fear that the original problem is CVC's greed, which comes from MrM's giving away of F1's commercial rights to MrE for a plate of beans..

A bit short sighted IMO. Bernie was running the show right from the moment when he got the teams to sign over the TV rights in 1981. His "greed" and the cut throat methods of making money have not changed one bit since then. The 100 year commercial deal came twenty years later. At that time Bernie had the system of squeezing the promoters for money perfected. Race fees and TV deals have always fuelled his business for thirty years and he would not leave one penny on the table that could find the way into his pockets. Weather the pockets were ultimately owned by the teams & FiA, himself, a media group or some private equity suits never made a difference to his commercial methods. As long as F1 is run by Bernie he will always drive the race fees continually upwards. He knows that the market is there and why should he not take advantage of it. His purpose in life is exercising power by making money. He does not care who owns the business.