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Charles Nungester (Offline)
  #1 9/29/22 11:55 AM
Seen a interview with Perris Owner/promoter and he said Flo only pays 1k per event and that his attendance is down 37% Said that yes, gas hit six fifty a gallon out there and people just stayed home.

I got no idea what flo's subscription levels are but at ten thousand that's 1.5 million and at a hundred fifty thousand it's 22.5 million
I wouldn't be surprised if half a million aren't subscribed just or racing in Sprint and LMs or more and that's 75 million.

If this is the business model, Its not just a joke, but a travesty for tracks.

Sure they got a lot of camera men and techs to pay but no tracks, NO RACING.
Also don't know if this is the USAC deal with Flo or what. But tracks like THAT and Perris, over half their races are USAC.

Charles Nungester
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kb78 (Offline)
  #2 9/29/22 1:40 PM
I wonder how many people they get in an average night? I guess that I am looking for a harder number of how many people they are losing a night. Let's say they average around 3000 folks a night, then they are probably losing $20,000 in revenue, that's a tough pill to swallow. To be fair, I do not know anything about Perris speedway except that it is on my bucket list so I am just pulling numbers out of the air.
The other thing that I would like to know is if FLO is paying the same thing for all events, as in is it still $1,000.00 when the National USAC guys are there vs. regional?

Also, what do the attendance numbers at other California tracks look like? Tracks that do not have FLO. Are they down substantially too?

I am not disagreeing with you Charles, but I would like to see more information before I clean off my pitchfork and light my torch to go after the streaming services.
If tracks are truly losing massive amounts of money then I would expect to see less and less local shows on FLO due to tracks wanting more money for the rights.
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Charles Nungester (Offline)
  #3 9/29/22 2:07 PM
Originally Posted by kb78:
I wonder how many people they get in an average night? I guess that I am looking for a harder number of how many people they are losing a night. Let's say they average around 3000 folks a night, then they are probably losing $20,000 in revenue, that's a tough pill to swallow. To be fair, I do not know anything about Perris speedway except that it is on my bucket list so I am just pulling numbers out of the air.
The other thing that I would like to know is if FLO is paying the same thing for all events, as in is it still $1,000.00 when the National USAC guys are there vs. regional?

Also, what do the attendance numbers at other California tracks look like? Tracks that do not have FLO. Are they down substantially too?

I am not disagreeing with you Charles, but I would like to see more information before I clean off my pitchfork and light my torch to go after the streaming services.
If tracks are truly losing massive amounts of money then I would expect to see less and less local shows on FLO due to tracks wanting more money for the rights.
What pitchfork? It's got to do with right and wrong.

Speedshift used to charge full price and offered the track a sum which they could accept or reject. Now USAC they show all USAC races on FLO. The track if a third of regular customers don't show up (Yet still get to see the show loses a ton) Here's your thousand, Never mind your out 29k in admissions, More if you count the concessions they may have purchased.

Then FLO throws a couple dozen 80k purse races out there. Like others said There wasn't a big crowd at all at Atomic last night.

Charles Nungester
Blitzman (Offline)
  #4 9/29/22 2:12 PM
Is it FloSports fault that gas is $3.50 to $6.50 a gallon across the country, no. FloSports is in the live streaming business, not petroleum.

If these tracks don’t like the deal they are getting from a live steaming service, then don’t sign the contract, or negotiate for better deal. Maybe some of these tracks need to negotiate with the traveling series that brings in a live streaming service and work out a better deal. If a deal can’t be met, then the track has every right to announce that they tried to get a certain series in, but a financial deal couldn’t be met due to live streaming connected to the travel series.
Something will give at some point.
But I’ll just go and support local tracks in person, since my health allows me. I’m not going sit at home and complain cause I can’t watch a race on tv for $1 or less through a subscription.

Maybe these tracks need to go back to charging for each race to watch as the GA gate price. Time will tell.
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dsc1600 (Offline)
  #5 9/29/22 2:13 PM
I think it makes sense for the touring series to be on Flo or DV, but it makes less sense for the tracks weekly shows to be on there.

1) because the low compensation doesn't offset loss of ticket sales
2) because it creates an environment where there is so much on the streaming services, you don't want to leave your couch

If I am in Central PA, I can go to Port or Lincoln and watch a regular show, or I can stay home and watch both in the comfort of my home and watch All Stars, USAC, Lucas Oil LM plus 100 other weekly shows. There's almost too much content to compete with.
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Charles Nungester (Offline)
  #6 9/29/22 2:28 PM
Here is the interview You may have to go back to the beginning from this link The Flo talk starts about 4 minutes in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XdbQRX3m6I&t=377s

Charles Nungester
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Offroadrace_814 (Offline)
  #7 9/29/22 2:43 PM
Originally Posted by Charles Nungester:
Also don't know if this is the USAC deal with Flo or what. But tracks like THAT and Perris, over half their races are USAC.

Perris has 24 races on their schedule with 9 of this being USAC/CRA races. This is 37 % of their races. Not over half.
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flagboy55 (Offline)
  #8 9/29/22 3:52 PM
I had the pleasure of talking to someone back in July who knew a lot about this topic. Some of which he wouldn’t tell me and some he told me not to repeat, so I won’t. But what I can say if the Flo streaming model is unique. There’s way more on Flo than just racing and we forget that sometimes. Most of us would think the biggest audience on Flo would be the Chili Bowl, and we would be wrong. He wouldn’t tell me what the average number of viewers were for a USAC race but when I threw out the number of 1000, he said I was low, but not far off. So let’s just say Charles is right that 3000 are watching. How many of them live close enough to drive to the track anyway? I’ll say maybe 10%. So that’s 300 people. That’s $45,000 in Flo subscriptions money. That hardly adds up to 22 million someone mentioned. Now if all this is hypothetically true, that’s also 300 people are not buying a ticket. And that adds up to 9k the promoter loses in tickets alone, well actually 8 because someone said they get a grand from Flo. That’s a tangible number. But I still say the cost of everything now is every bit as much to blame as streaming is.
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Charles Nungester (Offline)
  #9 9/29/22 4:07 PM
I was talking the number of people who bought into flo purely on Flo Racing. No it's not flo's fault that gas went up. But it's also races where the weather may have a chance of rain. If 3-400 people stay home at 30 dollars each Your right, it's 9-12k (Not counting concessions) Parking etc. Or half the purse.

Perris guy says something changes or USAC goes away.

Charles Nungester
kb78 (Offline)
  #10 9/29/22 4:11 PM
Originally Posted by Charles Nungester:
What pitchfork? It's got to do with right and wrong.

Speedshift used to charge full price and offered the track a sum which they could accept or reject. Now USAC they show all USAC races on FLO. The track if a third of regular customers don't show up (Yet still get to see the show loses a ton) Here's your thousand, Never mind your out 29k in admissions, More if you count the concessions they may have purchased.

Then FLO throws a couple dozen 80k purse races out there. Like others said There wasn't a big crowd at all at Atomic last night.

People get offended too easily nowadays. I wasn't implying that you were on a witch hunt, I was merely stating that I am not going to automatically blame Flo until I would see some clearer numbers. I don't necessarily agree that it is about right and wrong either, I just think it is about business. If the tracks are on the short end for weekly shows then they will stop signing the contracts or ask for more money, sooner or later the whole business of streaming races will find it's own level and they will have a template going forward.

One things for sure, it's not going away.
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