Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

C'mon. The biggest midget race in the country that draws nearly 400 cars and crews and pays only $10 grand to win? The "too big for his britches" guy is right. Hell, that's what every WoO sprint car race pays - as a minimum. Isn't that what the min pay for WoO and Lucas Oil LM shows are too? Larson is right. I'd like to see the numbers - as I said, nearly 400 entries with multiple pit passes per car, ticket sales, concession sales, liscensed merch sales, sponsor $, Flo $ - I'm not buying that the promotors are hurting. No reason the Chili Bowl can't be at least $25k to win.

Is this just the warm-up to announcing a Hi Level Indoor Midget race in competition to the Chili Bowl?

they have not raised the purse for years

If it's just Larson, not that big of a deal

if it's a few more of the A main contenders, it's a huge deal

Somebody is a making a lot of money in Tulsa in January.  It's it not the Hahns then they should move it and get more $ in drivers and teams pockets

The drivers have a choice to race in it or not. If sweet loses money just to run it then don't race in it. Good grief they have a choice, if they don't like it don't race it.

Who knows what the financials look like but I bet it's not cheap to put that show on.

Honestly nobody would miss them

I've got a great line on some ocean front real estate in Kansas if you believe that.

And poor Tony Stewart. Surely he'll go broke this weekend running his KR shows. Gonna have to file bankruptcy after Sat night. He might make twenty bucks.

People will believe anything.

Got curious and decided to do some napkin math. I'm going to use 350 cars - didn't research it a ton, but saw 355 (2022), 341 (2020), and 350 (2019) so outside of the 300 in COVID year I'd say it's a fair number. Also going to use 3 people per car in the pits, going to assume they're attending all six nights. I fully understand these are really rough figures, but it gives a baseline. I'm not going to estimate pit passes for people not included with any car - I have no way to estimate it. 

Car/driver Revenue

350 cars x $150 entrant fee = $52,500

1150 pit-pass (3 per car, six-night pass) x $375 = $431,250

Total = $483,750

Crowd revenue

I'm going to assume a sell-out all six nights - I have no clue if this is accurate or not. I also have no clue if the 15K figure includes pit passes already or if it's just seats - a lot of the articles I've seen state bleachers for 15,000 so I'm going to use it as just ticketed non-pit fans. 

15,000 x $365 = $5,475,000

Trade-show revenue

220 10x10 booths x $1,200 = $264,000

That's $6.2M in revenue. Obviously it's a very ballparked estimate. 

No clue what the purse for the CB is. Don't know if it's ever been posted anywhere. The River Spirit Expo costs $8,505.00/day to rent per the Event Coordinator document. I don't know how long CB lease for - I'm going to put 60 days to account for everything, seems excessive but the total would be $510,300 - and I'd hope with a lease that long a better rate would be negotiated. Obviously there's cost to creating the track, insurance, advertising, staff salaries, etc. Just additional costs that none of us would have any idea on cost. However, there's also additional revenue that's unaccounted for - TV deal, sponsorships, merchandise, etc. No idea if there are any parking costs, fees for third-party (ie: drivers/teams) to sell merch, etc. 

This is a very, very broad view of it - but even if I'm overestimating costs and underestimating revenue, I can't imagine there's a very realistic case that CB doesn't make a good amount of money. But that's just my random view of it. 

Hard to disagree with Larson/Bell's take here. A simple litmus test of looking at the Gateway Dirt Nationals should tell that - between three classes comprising of 152 cars running for three nights pays $50K combined between the Saturday night As. 

There's almost weekly multiple late mode races that don't even have full fields that pay better than the chili bowl that draws hundreds of cars and is broadcast live on tv (which the TV/steaming revenue was not even discussed on the above posters napkin math, so zero chance the revenue is over estimated). They have been able to pay peanuts year after year and still have huge fields due to the prestige of the event, but seems the racers are gonna start wanting better purses. There's no excuse for the premier midget event like the chili bowl to pay worse than random late mode races. If the chili bowl is truly just skating by and can't afford to up the purse, then they need some serious management overhaul but if some of the other top names all start to sing the same tune as Larson all of a sudden the chili bowl will find the money to increase the purse.

I could be wrong, but I believe I saw an interview quite a few years ago about the winners share and Mr. Hahn said something along the lines of "more cars show up every year, why do I need to raise the purse if the car count keeps going up?". I agree with him, it's the prestige, not the pay. And that's not a direct quote, but pretty sure it's close? Do I think the purse should increase? For sure. But if the car count keeps growing, why should he need to? Just my opinion on the matter. All I know is, camp is all set up at the kings royal and we are ready to enjoy � 

Brad Haudenschild

Ok then, let's talk about the huge amount of money the Tulsa shootout brings in. Over 1500 entries and it pays basically nothing all week. Even to win it's pretty much an insult to get the $1000 or whatever it is on Saturday. For Emmett to tell everyone he can't afford to up the chili bowl payout is an insult to everyones intelligence. Now I can't say I blame him for not raising it because racers keep showing up. but for him to get all offended and righteous when someone finally takes a stand and says the pay is a joke, he needs to get a grip. He could pay $25,000 to win and not lose a seconds sleep 

Good to see your reading comprehension is still on point - staff salaries and insurance were both clearly mentioned. And OK - it doesn't sell out every night, but I'm also not counting any revenue for non-car pit passes. 

If Emmett wants to make his point, then he can show his point - I'm sure he has the P&L statements that can prove it.

I'm sure a lot of people would love to be "straightened" out by Emmett showing what he makes on this event. Even the event's spokesperson stated that "over a million dollars" are invested into the event each year. You can be super generous and cut my revenue estimates in half if you'd like, and use the spokesperson's statement and the profit would still be a very, large number.

Emmett, is that you?!  Good grief, bud, come up for air before you choke.  

Politics at its best-----most on this board have been complaining about purse size for years.  Then, a guy many of you thinks is "too big for his britches" speaks his mind about the purses, and he doesn't know what he's talking about.  Congress has some openings if any of you are looking for work.  

I'm also not sure what "too big for his britches means"-----if you asked every promoter in the country "what guy would you like to see show up at your race above all others?" the answer from 99% of them would be Larson.  Seems to me his words might hold some weight. 

hopefully these guys can get behind closed doors and work this out

Not having Larson and C Bell at this years nationals may not effect things much, but going forward, not having the absolute best of the best at the nationals WILL certainly have an effect.  Will there be incredible racing and great shows, of course.  Will it be hard ticket it's been up til now, no it will no

So yeah, get this mess off of social media.  Go into a closed door room and figure this out

I bet all the sponsors of the hotshots will be thrilled to learn of their boycott. If it paid 12K to win instead of 10K i'm sure that would allow Kyle to buy his lake house back. 

After retiring from a career in railroad accounting I could car less about purses or the promoters profit margin.  I just want to attend or stream good races and leave the business side to someone else.  Basically I just want to be like the ten year old kid in 1960 who was fascinated by the cars and drivers.  Rant over, just reminding myself why I'm a racing fan. 

Stan Meissner

I was on a connecting flight from Chicago to Tulsa and the guy next to me struck up a conversation, he was not a race fan but was curious about what kind of 'car race' was going on in Tulsa OK. I remember him asking me "how much it paid to the winner" and I paused and said, "I think it's $10,000". The year was 1998. 

Well, if it's that easy to make a zillion bucks running an indoor midget show, why isn't everyone doing it?

Yes, going to the races takes me back to the mid 70's, being a kid and caring about nothing and watching guys drive cool cars really fast (at least it seemed fast).  I get within a mile of the track, I roll the windows down so I can hear if there's a car on the track and can smell the fuel burning.  That's the one thing I miss with streaming.

Never said it was easy. And plenty of indoor events have popped up over the past few years - Gateway and Shamrock Classic seem to be two of the more popular ones.