MotoGP's future at Indianapolis appears to be hanging in the balance after the circuit's CEO said he would evaluate the series' future directly after this year's race.
Mark Miles, CEO of IMS owners Hulman and Co, says that probably too much effort has been spent promoting the Indy 500 and IndyCar at the circuit and not enough making MotoGP and NASCAR profitable.
The race will go ahead at the end of July but then there will be an evaluation as to whether it will continue into 2014 and to the end of the contract the circuit has with Dorna, or whether they will try and extracate themselves from it.
“We’re going to make the most of the opportunity. Our mindset now is that we’re going to go through 2014, but we’re going to look at this year and evaluate it right after," said Miles.
IMS will pay something in the region of $10M in sanctioning fees for a NASCAR and Grand AM event, receive $12M in TV money if they host Sprint Cup and Nationwide events on the same weekend plus around $7M in ticket money (which takes 85,000 paying people @ $85 per ticket) and $2M in Sprint Cup sponsorship plus various revenues from merchandising.
For MotoGP, the sanctioning fee is normally around $1.3M with ticket prices around $80 with an attendance of 60,000 paying people.
Attendances at race events are also never clear and published figures include every single person that has walked through the gate from the circuit CEO to the team personnel, marshals, media and litter pickers.
Whether either of the above events stacks up in terms of even covering costs at such a massive venue is unclear as the wages bill for ticket officers, concessions workers and ancilliary staff etc will be vast.
