Supercars: the new owners

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by Tourer

Speedcafe has a letter that Garry Rogers has sent to all the Supercar teams.

Makes for some interesting reading - GR being as forthright as always.

Apparently, much to my disappointment upon discovery, you have to get along with people to make stuff happen that wasn’t going to happen anyway.

The lead entity being underfunded is a massive risk.. that this is in public may trigger insolvency tests by existing financiers, and possibly scare off potential new sources of funds.

Plus teams, already seemingly nervous in non-patron teams about commercial sponsorship, cannot be best pleased either. At the state of affairs as reported, and that it was reported..

Mr Cochrane may just bang his platinum American Express card on the table and take the baby he help grow back home…

Please

[one five five]

You'd think the Roger's are still better to be involved than not involved though?

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

Mr Cochrane may just bang his platinum American Express card on the table and take the baby he help grow back home…

Please

Interesting if he did, would he want to leave the AFL without success under his helm though?

[cavvy]

Originally Posted by one five five

Interesting if he did, would he want to leave the AFL without success under his helm though?

Mr Cochrane has put up for SX Global:
https://au.motorsport.com/supercross...nship/8615258/

They plan to use an AFL owned venue later this year.

[Alan52]

So RACE borrowed the $70million and would be paying interest on that.Do the sums and that’s a lot.
Now they are already running out of money and need to borrow another $10million.
Things don’t seem to be going so swimmingly.

[Casper]

I was never convinced the sums added up, the cash turnover just can't be that good with a dwindling revenue base and the very real prospect of a fall of income from TV contracts in the future. The series simply does not have the cachet it once had no matter how we wish it did. You simply have to look at this forum to see that, races do not get discussed in any substantial way at all compared to times past. Borrowing the money to pay debt has only one ending, how dumb can supposedly intelligent people be?

[chavez]

Originally Posted by Casper

I was never convinced the sums added up, the cash turnover just can't be that good with a dwindling revenue base and the very real prospect of a fall of income from TV contracts in the future. The series simply does not have the cachet it once had no matter how we wish it did. You simply have to look at this forum to see that, races do not get discussed in any substantial way at all compared to times past. Borrowing the money to pay debt has only one ending, how dumb can supposedly intelligent people be?

The lack of discussion on this forum might be more of an indication of changes on the social media landscape.

One of the points Garry was trying to make was that the drivers are no longer household names. With them only appearing in front of the broader public 12 times a year it is no surprise.

However, stick a dozen of them in ARG categories, and that exposure grows with promotional opportunities. Sadly, that might have been the plan, but politics has got in the way.

[Mixer]

Originally Posted by Tourer

Makes for some interesting reading - GR being as forthright as always.

I'm calling Garry and ARG out on this.

They are the ones that have been aggressively buying up categories, TAKING THEM OFF the Supercar card, and VERY recently sold their coverage off to Stan for $20m.

Now he wants to have a cry that Supercars don't want SVG driving one of their cars?

ARG have literally caused all the divisions in the sport. if you want people to get together, start in your own backyard.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Alan52

So RACE borrowed the $70million and would be paying interest on that.Do the sums and that’s a lot.
Now they are already running out of money and need to borrow another $10million.
Things don’t seem to be going so swimmingly.

This is the real problem and not the politics which is always there.

[numbnuts]

since v8s cut off tv broadcast i say crash and burn . i know many ex fans like me say the same . no offence to the teams but they failed to stop it .
if they want to run at my local speedway track i might go but thats it .
flame away but im gone .

[one five five]

Originally Posted by Mixer

I'm calling Garry and ARG out on this.

They are the ones that have been aggressively buying up categories, TAKING THEM OFF the Supercar card, and VERY recently sold their coverage off to Stan for $20m.

Now he wants to have a cry that Supercars don't want SVG driving one of their cars?

ARG have literally caused all the divisions in the sport. if you want people to get together, start in your own backyard.

Isn’t the issue here that ARG are a large (shareholding) part of Supercars now?

There shouldn’t be an us and them.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by chavez

The lack of discussion on this forum might be more of an indication of changes on the social media landscape.

One of the points Garry was trying to make was that the drivers are no longer household names. With them only appearing in front of the broader public 12 times a year it is no surprise.

However, stick a dozen of them in ARG categories, and that exposure grows with promotional opportunities. Sadly, that might have been the plan, but politics has got in the way.

I am not sure about the social media issue as I don't participate though this is a social media place as well. It seems to me that things have changed, Brock, Richards etc were all household names before we had the internet and crowd attendances to race meetings far and away exceeded what you see today. There were also a lot more race meetings and we did not need the internet to know when they were on. The car club base was the reason that racing was popular but that no longer exists for all intents and purposes. No roots to the tree and the tree dies, pretty simple really.

[slugger]

Aren't the Domazet's the ones who would be the most at unease about this?

[Denosaur]

Originally Posted by Casper

The car club base was the reason that racing was popular but that no longer exists for all intents and purposes. No roots to the tree and the tree dies, pretty simple really.

I think the old "Confederation Against Motor Sport" has something to do with this....you can change the name, but can't change the attitude.

[Mixer]

Originally Posted by one five five

Isn’t the issue here that ARG are a large (shareholding) part of Supercars now?

Not that large, and notice that it's not ARG complaining, only Garry and Barry.

Originally Posted by one five five

There shouldn’t be an us and them.

ARG have always been the ones buying control of categories and carving them off for their own show, and only want Supercars when it suits them.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Denosaur

I think the old "Confederation Against Motor Sport" has something to do with this....you can change the name, but can't change the attitude.

No, it is a generational change from when we as kids enjoyed mucking around with cars in a totally different way to our children and I think it would make a good study as to why that change happened because no one seems to have looked at it seriously. Karting was not the kindergarten of motor sport then as it is today, nearly all the talent came out of car clubs. Maybe it happened because we enjoyed driving totally unfettered by legislation that clamps down on drivers of today.