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10/1/22, 7:25 PM   #31
Re: FLO, Even I have a problem with this.
Ray3
Ray3 is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 688
 

I think people underestimate the value Flo has brought to our sport. Viewership of individual events has gone up significantly by bringing the possibility to watch every race to every fan. This adds value for sponsors of both the organizations and teams. More value means more investment.

I have mixed feelings about race tracks and promoters today. Some show up, unlock the gate and do nothing else. Then they complain that nobody shows up while packing the back gate with 5-6 classes and running to midnight. That is not "promotion." Nobody wants to sit at a race track for 6 hours watching classes they have no interest in. You need a short program of one or two classes and then give the customers more amenities. If people feel the value they will not only show up but also pay more to be there. I tend to love the tracks that add value and run a tight ship. Fortunately, there are still tracks out there doing just that! Make sure to support them!

Do I believe the tracks are getting a raw deal with Flo? Yes. How raw of a deal is the question. I don't know what Flo's overhead behind the scenes is but I can figure out the at the track production costs fairly close. The problem comes in figuring out Flo's income. At $149.99 annually per subscriber with access to all Flo content makes it difficult. USAC has 144,000+ followers on Facebook and 58,700 on Twitter and I'm sure most of those overlap. We can use Facebook's average conversion rate of 9.21% to make an educated guess of approximately 13,262 people. Subtract your overhead from there.

13,262 X $149.99 = $1,989,167/99 events = $20,092 per race in revenue for Flo with no rain outs.

I'm going to say production costs are around $2500 per race. By the time you pay the announcer, camera operators, gas and hotels and internet to upload the races. Plus add in the $1,000 per race to the tracks. Lets add an additional $500 for incidentals. So 99 races X $4000 expenses = $396,000 annual expenses at the track.

$1,989,167 - $396,000 = $1,593,167 left to pay for whatever Flo's behind the scenes expenses are. Now we would need to know what USAC receives from Flo for the rights to the broadcasts.

My disclaimer here is that these are all estimates. I don't know what the actual number of subscribers is and have no way to find out. Hope this gives people something to chew on.
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Last edited by Ray3; 10/1/22 at 7:47 PM.
 
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