The $100 million dollar number was a result of a University of Nevada - Reno “survey”.
In the absence of an audit by a big name auditing company, I’m going to resist laughing. In 2010, Kentucky hosted the World Equestrian Games, the horse Olympics. The organizer provided silly economic impact numbers that few questioned. As it turned out, a UK Football home game on the same same day as Keeneland (race track) horse racing exceeded the impact of the entire World Equestrian Games.
These friendly surveys are usually self-serving and inflated. Some common issues:
- What’s the paid attendance versus total attendance?
- How did they count total attendance for a multi-day event? Commonly, they count person-days. If you attend two days, you count for two people. This is sometimes useful, as it helps calculate food and lodging revenue but it’s a bit deceitful.
- They often assume everybody is staying at a hotel and buying expensive meals, ignoring folks that commuted to the event and ate fast food or stayed in a crappy hotel an hour away.
- With regards to sponsors, the value of in-kind goods and services are often inflated.
- With regards to lodging, they assume that nobody else would take those rooms. It’s possible that hotels would be at 90% regardless.
- Revenue impact claims often ignore additional taxpayer expenses for fire, police, etc.
I have attended two Reno races and I’m not sure that Reno really noticed. The Reno races died because it’s a pretty mediocre event. It’s like an expensive airshow where the aircraft are avoiding the audience.
I loved the pits, the pre-race sights, sounds, and smells. The racing, not so much. For those watching streaming coverage, the production kinda sucked. Reminds me of broadcasts of high school football games.
With the right production, it could be a great TV event, no live audience required.
Red Bull did a nice job with their racing series and lost interest. It wasn’t a financial thing, they just lost interest.
www.nj.com
