MOTORSPORT: Time to deliver

Focus on Gold Coast - where to now?
In the wash-up from last weekend's Gold Coast SuperGP the very valid question is: where to now?

There's been a lot of commentary on what went wrong.

The Queensland government has appointed a former top bureaucrat, a man described as an events expert, David Williams, to review the SuperGP. His terms of reference are set out at the end of this article and, importantly, they require him to make recommendations for the future. The state's auditor-general, Glenn Poole, also will be looking, at the instigation of the Queensland opposition, over the contracts for the event, particularly that for the A1 GP international open-wheeler show that didn't show. That left the V8 Supercars alone as the main act.

Supposedly financially secured a few weeks ago and with a calendar for its fifth season, A1 GP now looks to have totally collapsed. Its website has vanished. Its five-year contract at the Gold Coast is effectively torn up.

Queensland premier Anna Bligh has said: "The government invested $11.6 million in the staging of this year's event and taxpayers deserve to know how that contribution was used and managed by the event organisers."

For the record, the organiser is IMG (International Management Group) in partnership with the government, via the Gold Coast Motor Events Company (GCMEC).

Bligh has also made clear that the government wants another motor racing event on the streets of Surfers' Paradise next year. It will be the 20th.

"At the end of the day we want an event that delivers for the fans, delivers for the Gold Coast, and is in the best interest of the Queensland economy," Bligh said.

It is essential over the next month, as Williams (incidentally a former board member of the Gold Coast Indy in its early years) prepares his report (at $2000 a day), to be looking forward as well as combing over the farce of the past few weeks.

The key in what Bligh has said is the "delivery". What has 18 years of Indy delivered to the Gold Coast? What did the SuperGP deliver this year? What can the event, in whatever revised format, deliver next year?

Indy began with the aim of promoting the Gold Coast internationally, particularly (but not exclusively) in the USA -- the home of IndyCar racing and the world's most powerful and one of its richest countries with a population of about 300 million people. While in its early years the Gold Coast Indy had an American  audience of some millions on free-to-air television, we have documented here previously how that audience dwindled and for much of the time was only on pay TV. In the end the audience was a relative handful in US terms.

A1 GP was to have brought a different, broader, although not necessarily larger international audience. It didn't, because it didn't happen. That left the V8 Supercars racing 50 per cent more than originally agreed for this year and, along with the support races, as the television product.

While the question is now 'where to', the big question unanswered -- or not properly answered this week -- is 'where did we go last weekend in terms of television?'

Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper reported on Tuesday that the Queensland government had contradicted itself on where the V8 Supercars were telecast.

"Sport minister Phil Reeves and premier Anna Bligh initially claimed the scaled-down race [event] was broadcast to a worldwide audience in 110 countries," Courier-Mail journalist Patrick Lion wrote.

"However, the premier later said the race was only 'fed' into 110 countries and could not state how many nations actually broadcast the event.

"Mr Reeves was still clueless about the full broadcast details last night despite taxpayers pumping almost $12 million into the race carnival for international exposure."

Having repeated Bligh's original claim about 110 countries showing the races, Lion reported that minutes later Reeves said he had to check and would clarify the issue later. His office said later, according to the Courier-Mail report, that New Zealand, India and the US had live telecasts, while delayed coverage would be shown in parts of Europe, the UK, North Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific.

We decided to try to verify this for ourselves. Minister Reeves' office told us that there was most certainly a live telecast in NZ, a country which apparently accounts for a quarter of tourists to the Gold Coast, and that the Australian television audience was up seven per cent and that something like 2.6m Australians had seen something of the event on television.

From our own research we note that the Oztam averages for the five mainland capital cities show that the audience for the fourth V8 Supercar race, late last Sunday afternoon, was quite good at 717,000, but that the others were modest (470,000 for race three earlier on Sunday) and poor (358,000 and 212,000 on Saturday). Those last three numbers, and particularly the last two, on the Saturday, are numbers you might see from an ordinary V8 Supercar Championship round. Indeed, a very ordinary round.

Beyond the Australian-NZ picture minister Reeves' office steered us to the offices of V8 Supercar Australia, from where it (the minister's office) said all information on which the government's statements on TV had come.

So we posed our questions to V8SA.
>> How many countries did the telecast go out to?
>> Which ones?
>> How many countries screened the races live, and which ones?
>> Did the V8 Supercar races slot into any overseas TV schedules that had been arranged for A1 GP?
>> Might we be able to expect a report on the audience figures in the various countries based on the equivalent of Oztam in those countries, and if so when?
>> What's the story in the US? Didn't think V8 Supercar racing was on American TV at the moment. Has this changed, and if so when?
>> And anything else (we should know)?

The usually bold V8SA was uncharacteristically gun-shy on these matters. A representative told us V8SA's contract with GCMEC and the Queensland government only required it to provide live television into Australia and NZ. He said there was no contractual obligation on it to show live or delayed vision internationally for the SuperGP.

"That was A1 GP's job, not ours... So the questions you ask are not really valid within the context of SuperGP," he said.

This brings us back to the contradiction the Courier-Mail alluded to -- statements by the Queensland government (based, according to minister Reeves' office, on information provided to it by V8SA) that the event was telecast to a worldwide audience in 110 countries, later amended to live telecasts in NZ, India, and the US, and delayed coverage to be shown in parts of Europe, the UK, North Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific.

NZ live? Certainly. India live? Perhaps. Free-to-air or pay TV? And what audience? US live? No. Even delayed? No sign of it yet.

Twice recently we had occasion to ask American contacts whether V8 Supercar racing is on US TV these days and twice we were told it isn't. To be sure, this week we asked a man most expert in American motor racing TV audiences, Forrest Bond of US electronic publication Racefax, whether there had been any sign of the Gold Coast racing last weekend on American television.

"If any V8 Supercar races have aired in the US they've been more than difficult to find. I'm not aware of any broadcast deal here," Bond replied.

A few thousand people in other places -- like Britain, where the V8 Supercar races are shown on Motors TV -- will have seen, or will get to see, delayed packages of last weekend's action.

The importance of the great television contradiction though is that, in the context of where to now for the Gold Coast carnival, the event organisers, the government, and -- in the immediate weeks before he reports by the end of November -- David Williams need to look at just what motor racing in Surfers' Paradise has delivered and, if it is to continue, can deliver.

The suggestion being pedalled in some quarters that the Gold Coast event become a festival modelled on Britain's Goodwood needs to be examined in this light. Goodwood is revered by motor racing enthusiasts around the world, but it doesn't generate massive television coverage. Certainly not major telecasts. Perhaps a few feature stories. But worth millions of dollars a year?

There is a strong push among Gold Coast tourism operators for a new international category, but such things -- of any quality -- are in short supply. Perhaps the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile's new GT1 world championship, which has a six-week gap in its 2010 calendar in October-November?

V8SA executive chairman Tony Cochrane has said that, if the Queensland government would let his organisation run the Gold Coast event, he would do it for half the $11.6 million it's been costing -- and he's prepared to have an international component.

Aside from the limited choice of international categories, we wonder whether anything now can give the event the appeal to international TV -- the whole reason for its creation, remember -- that it needs to justify its existence.

The Queensland government wants another motor race meeting in Surfers' Paradise next year. Perhaps every effort ought to be made to make it a good one, a 20th birthday, and wave the chequered flag on it -- and, in the 12 months before it and 12 months after it, create a permanent home for motor racing in the area, that could be used all year round, for a variety of purposes, without massive disruption, and that delivers...

NB: See terms of reference set by Queensland government for the Gold Coast SuperGP review by David Williams, below.

Webber third favourite for new Abu Dhabi GP
The Formula One season concludes this weekend, with the sport's first day-night grand prix in Abu Dhabi.

Despite US$1 billion reportedly having been spent on the track in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, it's hard -- with the drivers' and constructors' championships already decided -- to get excited about it, other than seeing whether Australia's Mark Webber can win his third Grand Prix of the year.

Coming off his Brazilian victory two weeks ago, Webber is third favourite in Abu Dhabi at 6-1, behind Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel each at 9-4. New world champion Jenson Button is at 7-1.

The new circuit is 5.55km, with an expected top speed of 317km/h and anticipated average close to 200km/h, but with what former F1 ace David Coulthard has called a "silly" pitlane exit tunnel.

It will be the last GP for refuelling, perhaps for KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) and for BMW.

It's a crazy world, F1, and an article on driver salaries from arabianbusiness.com, with Webber ranked the seventh highest-paid, only confirms that view.

Note: terms of reference set by Queensland government for the Gold Coast SuperGP review by David Williams:
>> A short contextual history of the Gold Coast motorsport event over the past 19 years, including the cost and economic benefit of staging the event;
>> A description of the circumstances surrounding the staging of the 2009 event and the inclusion of the A1GP and V8 Supercars Australia in the event program;
>> An analysis of the circumstances with a focus on governance, due diligence, including the adequacy of contractual oversight and management of the event, in particular the A1GP sanctioning agreement;
>> Conclusions and recommendations on the implications for government with regard to governance and due diligence for the future staging of the event; and
>> Advice from an event perspective on future options for a motor racing event on the Gold Coast.

Image: supergp.com

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