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Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks
Formula 1 is more popular than V8 Supercars in Australia now -- noting the Australian GP with a sellout status that exceeds rival ATCC street races.
Even at the Australian GP, grandstands tend to be more full for Formula One sessions than ATCC sessions, for whatever reason -- even though both categories are included in the program and therefore the race ticket.
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You've put forward the same argument that F1 is more popular than Supercars in Oz before, using the same logic based off crowd at the AGP. Again this time, it doesn't fly. AGP is a one-off event, the only time to see the Fi World Championship live in Oz, Supercars is a national series with many rounds. Supercars street circuits are shorter than Albert Park, with less crowd space & could sell out but still have less crowd than the AGP. Given the marquee nature of the event, if the AGP didn't exceed crowd size at Supercars events there'd be something very wrong. "more popular" would actually be assessed across a range of measurements & right now I couldn't tell you which would come out on top - be an interesting discussion but basing a judgement on one event doesn't stack up. If you REALLY wanted to do that though, you'd compare TV audience for the AGP with TV audience for the Bathurst 1000 - on that basis, Supercars is "more popular" - very flawed reasoning.
Of course there are less in the grandstands for Supercars than F1 - F1 is the "main event", the reason for many being there, whereas Supercars is a support & like any support does not draw the same interest as the "main event". It is an important part of the program though and AGP was on record some years ago about the millions $ wise that Supercars brings to the event - which is why Supercars gets its own pit lane, so yes, smaller than F1 at the AGP (as you'd expect) but still significant.
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If I was the organiser of the Adelaide 500, I would consider making the ATCC a support category and bringing in FIA WEC as the headline race with a 6 hour race. I imagine hosting fees are much more reasonable than Formula One.
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They tried that - over 20 years ago. Staged the "race of a thousand years" at the Millennium (depending on how you just the actual millenium point of course). Was a pretty good event from all reports but lost something in the vicinity of $9 million back then. I very much doubt they'll be trying that again.