$29.3 million paid by the State of Texas

If the first Austin Grand Prix was a great popular success, it remains that the organizers need financial support from the state of Texas. The latter has just approved the payment of assistance amounting to $29.3 million.

This payment was planned as part of the special fund provided by the State of Texas to help its cities organize large events, such as the Super Bowl. This sparked controversy when the State Senate Finance Committee initially refused to make the advance payment of 25 million dollars demanded by Bernie Ecclestone.

The amount paid today following the authorization from Susan Combs, the Texas comptroller, is almost in line with what the promoters of the Circuit of the Americas were requesting, as they had submitted a request for $30.6 million in July.

In the mechanism provided by the Texas Major Events Trust Fund, the public grant should only equal the surplus of taxes collected due to the event compared to a “normal” situation. Obviously, the organizers have not been able to conduct a thorough study on the event’s impact. Therefore, this amount is currently only an estimate that the organizers are required to further investigate with a study to be completed within 18 months.

A first piece of data obtained by the local daily Austin Statesman corresponds to the revenue of city hotels in the five days leading up to the race. These reportedly simply tripled compared to last year, reaching 32 million dollars. The organizers were counting on a total of 52 million dollars but over the seven-day period around the event.

Public money is thus perceived as an investment to reward organizers for their efforts to promote a region, rather than a subsidy in pure loss. The amount spent by Texas should also be seen in perspective with the 36 million dollars of loss recorded by the 2012 Korean Grand Prix or the 56 million Australian dollars borne by the taxpayers of Melbourne.

With the participation of www.Racingbusiness.fr