On the eve of this year's Grand Prix du Canada, the future of the race does not look bright. I wonder whether the current 10-year contract will be fulfilled.
I don't know where the city and the promoter will find the money to make the $30M+ in infrastructure improvements that are required in the current contract. The public is no mood to write another check using public funds for the benefit of F1. Race promoter Francois Dumontier needs to find a major sponsor soon, or else...
Taxpayers, start your outrage: You’re paying for the Montreal Grand Prix
Konrad Yakabuski
MONTREAL — The Globe and Mail
Thursday, Jun. 09, 2016 6:00PM EDT
...Under a 10-year deal struck in 2014 with British F1 magnate Bernie Ecclestone, governments here will pay $187-million to Mr. Ecclestone’s management company for the privilege of holding an F1 race in Montreal until 2024. Montreal also agreed to pay for upgrades to the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve race track demanded by Mr. Ecclestone and estimated in 2014 to cost $32-million.
At the time, Canadian politicians of all stripes fell over themselves to laud the deal...
It turns out their enthusiasm was based on a major false assumption. Ottawa estimated the annual “economic spinoffs” from the Montreal Grand Prix at $70-million, but offered little in the way of data to back up that number. The Quebec government was even more bullish, estimating the economic impact at $90-million a year, without so much as a credible cost-benefit analysis to prove it.
But a new economic impact study commissioned by the governments and the event’s promoter, Octane Racing Group, pegs the event’s contribution to Canada’s gross domestic product at $42.4-million, about half the previous estimates, raising serious questions about whether cash-strapped governments should be subsidizing the leisure activities of the 1 per cent at all.
The study, conducted by Montreal research firm Ad Hoc and based on data collected during the 2015 Grand Prix, the previous estimates erred in failing to account for double counting in gross revenues and spending on imported goods and services. The result is that the $17-million governments pumped into the Grand Prix in 2015 – a sum that is to be indexed at a rate of 2 per cent a year over 10 years – generated just $8.1-million in tax revenues for Ottawa and Quebec...
Even with more credible but sobering data in hand, it’s unlikely that governments would have thought much harder about meeting Mr. Ecclestone’s conditions. The Grand Prix has taken on such iconic status in Montreal that the mere threat of losing it gives politicians anxiety attacks...
F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone slams Canadian Grand Prix over infrastructure, sponsor
By Bill BeaconThe Canadian Press
6:07 PM, Thu., June 9, 2016
MONTREAL—Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone is not impressed that no work has been done on building new paddock at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and that the race has yet to land a major sponsor.
When a multimillion dollar deal involving three levels of government was announced in 2014 that would keep the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal until 2024, the city promised an extra $32 million for the paddock and other infrastructural improvements by 2017. That leaves one year for a lot of work to be done.
Asked if failing to get it done on time would put the event’s future in doubt, Ecclestone said “Probably the contract’s in doubt. When you have a contract, normally it’s got the terms are set out in the contract what people are supposed to do, both sides. It’s been forgotten a little bit from the city.”
“I find it difficult to understand why they haven’t managed to attract a major sponsor,” he added.
Race promoter Francois Dumontier didn’t comment on the lack of movement on infrastructure, but he is still working on finding a sponsor to make the event profitable...