Found this article linked on Twitter today; the figures are truly mind boggling for a "sport"!

 

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/the-f1-financial-structure-explained-in-four-sentences/

 

Sport is what people do for fun.

When money becomes invoved it's a business.

Absolutely agree.

To spend money, someone must be receiving money & the money must come from someplace. 

 

So it goes around in one way or another, or it is Pyramid Financing,

or as has been know for decades,

a means of Laundering Money from Country to country, as in many Sports & Businesses, hide the Illegal money by washing it through

the huge exchanging of Currencies & the Paper Trail that is near impossible to hide in other Indudtries.

Then there is the Hospitality in Kind and Bribery possible in the Billion Dollar Sports.

 

george

 

PS

It just rolls on over the Decades.

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft00336.html

Edited 6 November, 201411 yr by goneoffSKi

Most of it is spent in the UK, on small companies that make the parts.

 

The reason the costs are so high is a highly skilled workforce that have to be kept by a small company and all the expensive equipment and research costs to develop it.

A computer to simulate the parts before you start making them is the best part of £500,000.

 

It could be made cheaper by sending all the knowledge and technical know how, plus future development work out to somewhere cheaper like china, but then the UK would lose its motorsports industry and many other high tech jobs.

Seems a bit daft just for a political statement.

F1 was a sport until around 1967, after which it became a business. At this point aero also came in and totally ruined it.

I adore F1, but it is indeed a business and not a sport as such.

 

But anything above club level sport is a business surely? Televised Sport is entertainment which then falls under the entertaiment industry.

 

Most manufacturers enter F1 for marketing purposes. Even the teams that have no works backing (Williams and Sauber for example) are busnesses in their own right. It just so happens their business model is based around revenue from sponsiorships and F1 rights / FIA standings prize money.

I adore F1, but it is indeed a business and not a sport as such.

 

But anything above club level sport is a business surely? Televised Sport is entertainment which then falls under the entertaiment industry.

 

Most manufacturers enter F1 for marketing purposes. Even the teams that have no works backing (Williams and Sauber for example) are busnesses in their own right. It just so happens their business model is based around revenue from sponsiorships and F1 rights / FIA standings prize money.

Except for the fact that Williams have other businesses now and the F1 team is just a small cog in a much bigger business. They are also a public listed company.

Ian

At least unlike many other sports a lot of the money is spent on cutting edge equipment rather than hugely inflated salaries and I wouldn't mind the sums of money being spent if it made for good racing.  Sadly it doesn't at the moment and I don't think there's any simple fix to that.

 

John

Huskoda, on 06 Nov 2014 - 11:28, said:

F1 was a sport until around 1967, after which it became a business. At this point aero also came in and totally ruined it.

 

Really?

 

Did not title sponsors arrive in 1959 with Yeoman Credit?

 

Cooper, Lotus were in the business of selling racing cars and F1 was a great shop window.

 

I think it has often been a business in the past, be the investment in it for making money or national propaganda.

Edited 5 March, 201511 yr by camelspyyder

At least unlike many other sports a lot of the money is spent on cutting edge equipment rather than hugely inflated salaries and I wouldn't mind the sums of money being spent if it made for good racing.  Sadly it doesn't at the moment and I don't think there's any simple fix to that.

 

John

 

Did you not think last years torquey cars were more spectacular to watch than the screaming v8s?

 

And the title battle was possibly the most closely fought since Senna/Prost?

Did you not think last years torquey cars were more spectacular to watch than the screaming v8s?

 

And the title battle was possibly the most closely fought since Senna/Prost?

 

No, not even remotely - the title battle wasn't really fought at all as it was largely down to mechanical failures, it was very rare to see the two Mercedes cars racing as when they were both functioning usually one overtook the other at some point in the race and that was it.  With Ferrari and Renault both dropping the ball with the engine (and Honda looking to do the same) the new engine rules mostly took them out of contention (certainly Ferrari) and because the rules are so strict there's no interesting variance so you can't have faster, less reliable cars or less fuel efficient more reliable ones etc. 

 

It's meant to be the premier motorsport but I just find F1 pales in comparison to other racing series which have better looking and sounding cars some of which have far more interesting engines under the bonnet - I can't wait to see Le Mans this year with Nissan joining in at the front with their radical front engined, front wheel drive car while I've little interest in the F1 which from we've seen in practice so far looks like little will change from last year with Mercedes walking it again.

When you think about the technology and the tracks, it makes far more sense than the money involved in 22 blokes kicking a ball around a field.

JohnMcL7, on 05 Mar 2015 - 22:38, said:JohnMcL7, on 05 Mar 2015 - 22:38, said:

It's meant to be the premier motorsport but I just find F1 pales in comparison to other racing series which have better looking and sounding cars some of which have far more interesting engines under the bonnet - I can't wait to see Le Mans this year with Nissan joining in at the front with their radical front engined, front wheel drive car while I've little interest in the F1 which from we've seen in practice so far looks like little will change from last year with Mercedes walking it again.

 

Fair enough.

 

But the new Nissan better looking than an F1 car?  I thought last years Porsche was pig ugly but Nissans designer does worse and worse every year:

 

Deltawing, Deltawing Coupe, ZEOD, and now WEC GT-R - eveything he draws has dropped straight out of the ugly tree.

 

No chance of form outweighing function in the WEC.

 

They are ugly - and the races are too long and hard to watch with lots of pitstops making it difficult to follow the order and gaps..

Edited 5 March, 201511 yr by camelspyyder

Fair enough.

 

But the new Nissan better looking than an F1 car?  I thought last years Porsche was pig ugly but Nissans designer does worse and worse every year:

 

Deltawing, Deltawing Coupe, ZEOD, and now WEC GT-R - eveything he draws has dropped straight out of the ugly tree.

 

No chance of form outweighing function in the WEC.

 

They are ugly - and the races are too long and hard to watch with lots of pitstops making it difficult to follow the order and gaps..

 

You're entitled to your opinion but I much prefer the design of any LMP1 car over an F1 car because they actually have some design, the tight constraints of the F1 cars means they all look much the same and there's so little to separate them.  The GTE's all look great as they're supercars in  race spec (the GT3's manage a better variety) and all the cars bar the diesel Audi (which oddly makes no noise at all) sound fantastic and all have their own distinct engine note.  With a huge mix of different technologies it mixes up the racing and I find the longer races make for much more varied races as the cars have to deal with night, wet, fog, cold, warm which inevitably suits different cars even in the shorter six hours races.  The F1 cars can't really race with each other any more, they don't look interesting and they sound dull as well (I didn't like the whiny V8's) and as I said above I can't see how they can improve it given the design of the F1 cars makes them inherently poor for competitive racing due to the amount of reliance on aero performance.

 

John

It's nice to have variety in the races, but after the 6 factory LMP1s have gone past -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thats it  - 6 competitive cars

 

and that's generous since the Toyota was way too fast last year for the Germans.

 

I hope that its closer this year.

Somebody mentioned salaries - LH is on over £1mil/race plus all endorsements - no, the money are not spent on overinflated salaries. And no, Bernie and the fekking investment funds he is employed by do not take almost 40% of all the money F1 makes. F1 has absolutely nothing to do with racing in reality, it is £multi-billion a year business where the teams budgets alone go to around £1.5billion a year in total.

We have that romantic notion of gentlemen racing in the most technologically sophisticated cars ever built risking their lives but it is just in our heads. In reality it is a huge money making machine with no morale but with abundance of accountants making decisions. Look at DvDG as the best example closely followed by a stellar career of Pastor "the Ditch Finder" Maldonado.

I still watch it but more as a circus than sport really. Even F1 drivers themselves hate F1 compared to real racing in lower formulas.

You want spectacular, competitive and exciting real racing? Watch some of US racing series I am afraid...

 

You want spectacular, competitive and exciting real racing? 

 

 Watch MOTO GP

 Watch MOTO GP

 

I love Moto GP, but even they are struggling to get big grids nowadays.

Football costs are just as bad. Sky are paying over £10m a game! That's madness!

I am firmly in the 4-wheel corner. I do watch motorbikes from time to time but as I am not a rider it does nothing for me I am afraid.

I take each sport for what it is. F1, BTCC, Moto GP. They all have pros and cons. 

 Watch MOTO GP

 

For excitng competition watch Moto 3 to be exact.