NASCAR Museum Racing Into The Red
Attendance at the NASCAR Hall of Fame plummeted 39 percent in June compared to the same month one year ago, attracting a scant 17,604 visitors according to numbers released yesterday by the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, which operates the $200-million, city-owned facility.
The drop in attendance continued a downward spiral for the racing museum: in May the facility saw 25,034 visitors grace its doors, down some 30 percent from the previous year.
Revenues, not surprisingly, aren’t doing much better: the hall of fame is projected to lose upward of $1.2 million versus earlier pie-in-the-sky predictions that it would haul in an $800,000 surplus.
Somewhere CRVA executive director-without-an-employment-contract-but-still-pocketing-$300K-a-year Tim Newman is desperately trying to hawk hall of fame commemorative bricks and corporate sponsorships, while hoping you make plans to take the family on an extended, perhaps permanent vacation at the local Holiday Inn.
Recall that our bight-bulb city leaders bumped the hotel/motel occupancy tax by 2 percent to help pay for the racing museum’s construction, along with taking out a $21 million loan from BAC and Wells/Wachovia, backed by the sale of corporate sponsorships.
Back last fall, the hall of fame had managed to land all of 10 corporate sponsors who had committed about $5 million … total. Don’t know if that has improved any since, but the way NASCAR sponsorships are trending overall doesn’t bode well. If the city can’t pay back the loan, the banks have no way to recoup their money. And you know what that means.
But not to worry; Newman & Co. assure that the city has enough in reserves to cover any near-term shortfall and that, as always, attendance is expected to steadily improve.
Just like it has in the past.
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