Circuit of the Americas Development Updates

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Originally Posted by bluedogok

The attendance was better than most of the races in the rest of the world, the early races at Indy were an anomaly and not the norm.

Better than most races in the world, but not on par with American & Canadian F1 crowds we've seen.

The Canadian GP consistently hits 140K on race day & 300K for the weekend. Last year's Montreal student protests resulted in a Canadian GP attendance of only 285K. That was a 'down year' compared to the norm, but still 20K more than COTA's 3-day attendance of 265K.

Then you have Indy (race day attendance):

2000: 225K+
2001: 185K, 19 days after 9/11...first major sporting event after the attack.
2002: 140K
2003: 140K
2004: 150K
2005: 145K @Michelin tire debacle
2006: 125K Thanks, Michelin!
2007: 120K

In Indianapolis....at an improvised "roval" course that was panned by drivers, teams, journalists, and fans alike. You can discount the early years as anomalies if you like, but history shows us that a GP's best year is usually it's first year. Indy followed that pattern, too, but even after a downward eight-year trend they never had a crowd as small as the inaugural COTA USGP. That doesn't bode well for COTA.

Hell, F1 even drew over 110K in Dallas on race day despite an infamously bumpy, disintegrating Fair Park street circuit and oppressive, tarmac-melting, 100+degree mid-July heat. It was so bad that it looked after Qualifying like the race would be canceled. Crews worked through the night to get the track race-ready, but the threat of cancellation remained until practically the last minute...and the race still drew almost as well as COTA's USGP on a pristine circuit in "Chamber of Commerce" November weather.

We went to the last one at Indy in 2007, a German couple sitting next to us said that it was cheaper for them to go to the race in Indy than it was a race in Germany, either the German GP or European GP on years that it was held in Germany.

Funny, American fans are saying the reverse now, and German GP tickets are much cheaper than USGP tickets. Meanwhile, European fans are listing the high-end races that are cheaper for them to attend, like Monaco and Singapore..

It was cheaper than any other race in Europe or Canada. What COTA has done is price the F1 race commensurate with the other F1 races

Nope. Not by a long shot. The 2012 USGP was more expensive than any Euro race outside Monaco, and was the 3rd most expensive GP, just behind Abu Dhabi & Monaco.

It was much more expensive than Canada, and remains so in 2013. Gold GSs in Montreal are less than half as expensive as their counterparts in Austin.

Montreal proves that F1 prices don't have to be astronomical. In 2010 I flew from Austin to Hartford on a last-minute ticket, rented a car and drove to Montreal for the Canadian GP, paid for turn 2 and hairpin tickets, and apartment/hotel lodging for four nights. I got a 5-day vacation in Montreal for about what 3 days of COTA Turn 1 tickets and parking would cost me.

I paid less than that for my whole trip to the 2010 Texas/Alabama BCS National Championship game at the Rose Bowl, including air, car, football tickets, and 3 nights' beachfront lodging in Hermosa Beach. COTA USGP prices are roughly 50% to 140% higher than 11 of the 18 other GPs. India is the cheapest. Abu Dhabi the most expensive.

"But the Canadian GP is subsidized by Canadian taxes. That keeps ticket prices low", you might say. Well, it is subsidized by the taxpayer ($15M annually), but not nearly to the degree that Texas taxpayers subsidize the USGP (~$25M+ annually), and Texas doesn't get a cut of the profits from the race like the Canadian government does.

Indy hasn't had a full house for the 500 since a few years after the AOWR split. I don't think they have had everything open for the Nascar race either.

Including General Admission, Indy has a capacity around 400K, so not selling out really isn't that surprising or concerning. Maybe if they used the COTA tactic of repeatedly lowering expectations from 200K+ (Hellmund's stated goal early on) to 140K to 120K...then they'd surely """sell out""". But they don't do that. They also don't arbitrarily cap General Admission sales at 40K in an effort to direct customers toward slow-selling reserved seats, as COTA did in 2012 (COTA GA areas can accommodate tens of thousands more). Still didn't work & they had gaping holes in at least the Main GS and T6 GS during the race. Even after lowering the stated capacity of the track multiple times, COTA didn't 'sell out', despite what Geoff Moore said recently. They didn't sell out at their arbitrary limit of 120K and this management likely never will sell out at the actual capacity of the circuit (200K+).