V8SC: Cochrane retiring but not exiting

COMMENT: Some pros and cons of the V8 Supercar era

V8 Supercar chairman Tony Cochrane says he’s retiring from the position “by the end of the 2012 championship season”.

However, he won’t be departing the sport entirely. He will remain a five per cent shareholder and “will continue as an external senior advisor to the V8 Supercar board”.

In the announcement of his “retirement” Cochrane said: “I am eager to embrace a new journey in whatever I choose to get involved with, be it sport, entertainment or my other entrepreneurial interests. I leave with no regrets and on my own terms at a time that I believe is right for the sport.”

One wonders though whether Cochrane will go far away from V8 Supercars. Whether there might even be a bit, or a lot, of gamesmanship in this “retirement” announcement.

That he might be counting on majority owner Archer Capital and the team owners saying: “Tony, you can’t leave us, mate. This show can’t exist without you. What’s it going to take for you to agree to stick around as executive chairman? Let’s sort things out.”

The V8 Supercar “brand” has existed for 16 years, although there were V8 Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons racing long before that.

Cochrane has been a dynamic, colourful and controversial leader. Not one to hide his light under a bushel.

“I am very proud of my V8 Supercar legacy and my involvement in Australian motorsport,” Cochrane said.

He has been hugely successful financially in V8 Supercars, recounting some time ago that he invested a mere $52,000 at the outset. Nowadays his five per cent stake could be worth around $20 million. And he helped team owners unlock the value in their operations through the Archer deal.

So V8 Supercars has been very good for Tony Cochrane and the team owners. More than ever, it is the premier and far-and-away dominant form of racing in Australia.

But this author has often queried whether the financial success of those stakeholders – as deserved as it may have been in some instances, especially for the team owners – has equated to great health of the sport.

Is Australian touring car racing any better for the fan today than it was pre-V8 Supercar? Especially in this year when only two teams and four drivers have won all 20 championship races.

We have been accustomed to Tony Cochrane telling us how wonderfully well it’s all going, that V8 Supercars is “all growth, growth, growth”. In Friday’s announcement he said: “The sport is in tremendous shape, has an unbelievable future.”

Certainly there have been more of lots of things in the V8 Supercar era. More races in the championship, more of them overseas, more merchandising and from next year more marques – Nissan and Mercedes-Benz, although the latter will be a customer rather than a factory effort. Indeed, very much against the wishes of the factory’s Australian arm.

But the health of the sport is best measured by TV ratings and circuit attendances. On the television front, as documented here over the years, the main race in the championship, the Bathurst 1000, is a shadow of what it once was. Although the numbers ticked up somewhat last year, almost a third of the national audience for the Great Race had been lost in the previous eight years.

Viewing numbers for many of the other rounds of the championship have been mediocre, although there was a pleasing sign of improvement with the 500km Bathurst warm-up returning to Melbourne’s Sandown this month.

Some events though have been disastrous, in particular the move in New Zealand to the streets of Hamilton, which has cost that regional city NZ$40 million, the Canberra street race, and – in crowd terms – the endurance race at Phillip Island in recent years. Other than NZ, the attendances at overseas races have been woeful and the events not enduring.

It seems the Sydney 500 which Cochrane fought so long and hard to establish might become extinct when its contract expires, having failed to deliver what was predicted for it.

Cochrane’s energy, drive and vision are undoubted. The first two elements must be commended, even if agreement with the vision is far from universal.

This writer is not yet convinced that Cochrane will be far away from the reins of V8 Supercars in the next few years, but I could be wrong.

There has been a report linking him to the vacant National Rugby League chief executive position. That is a much higher-profile job in a bigger sport. It also is a salaried position, and even if the annual salary - $1 million or more – was to be more than Cochrane may receive now, it would not provide the same scope for ownership that V8 Supercars has.

It’s hard to see him in that post, which also would have other strictures to which Cochrane is not accustomed.

Tony Cochrane may wind back his V8 Supercar involvement somewhat over the next few years, but it will be a surprise if he fades away.

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