Racing Into The Red
And smiling the whole way, with officials from the NASCAR Hall of Fame claiming no reasons for concern despite attendance numbers that have failed to keep pace with even lowered expectations.
HOF officials had originally ballyhooed a projected 800,000 visitors for the hall’s first year, which was subsequently trimmed to 575K; yet trends show the taxpayer-funded racing museum will be lucky to break 400,000, with potential for daunting problems on the revenue side moving forward.
The Charlotte Business Journal’s Erik Spanberg breaks it down here:
For the first two months of operations reflected in the visitors authority report, the hall of fame generated $1.8 million in revenue, $65,000 ahead of budget.
Despite those results, a closer look at the numbers reveals some cause for concern. Attendance in June fell to 27,617 from 35,051 in May. While the hall of fame had just three full weeks of operation in May, it benefited from publicity around the grand opening, the induction ceremony and thousands of race fans here for the spring NASCAR races at Charlotte Motor Speedway. All are understandable reasons for a drop in attendance, but the worrisome part is the June revenue fell $500,000 below internal budget projections of $1.2 million for the month. June revenue totaled $685,000.
In response to lagging attendance, HOF officials tout rave reviews from visitors who have actually made the trip, taking special pains to highlight that many came from out of state, bolstering the Queen City’s tourism cred. But despite the rose-colored glasses, tourism dollars are expected to remain tight, even for NASCAR-related spectacles. NASCAR, in fact, has seen across-board-the-board declines in revenue and attendance, according to none other than The NYT:
After years of jam-packed races, sky-high television ratings and record merchandise sales, Nascar has seen attendance at nearly every track slip this year as recession-weary fans continue to cut costs.
….
Other sports leagues have been hurt the past two years. But Nascar — with its heavier reliance on working-class fans, low fuel prices and the beleaguered auto industry — has suffered disproportionately, racing industry executives say. Ratings on television, sales of licensed goods and sponsorships, the lifeblood of the sport, are also suffering.
But, hey, no sweat for the France Family Museum. “It’s far too soon to say there’s any kind of alarms you need to worry about,” Winston Kelley, the executive director for the Hall of Fame, tells News 14.
So we know it must be true. Rest easy, citizen.
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