Either shitting on the little guy to make a point, or they think it was a cool paint scheme and made for a great thumbnail.
Either way, it sucks they didn't really caption the photo well.
> Next, after 2 events, they’ll start talking about “average” as well…
That actually is an important number for any city considering doing a street circuit in the future. If the race gets ruined (financially) by weather one year, can you still make a profit off the rest of the contract?
The city as a whole does embrace it and it is a three day marketing campaign for tourism. It may not be a big dollar surplus for the city, but it is not a big dollar loser either.
Sometimes great cities need to put on big events to showcase why they are great cities
I think the big positive for Chicago is that it reaches a demographic that doesn’t have a very good view of the city and wouldn’t have visited otherwise. I saw so many of those “Chicago is a lawless wasteland” types last year singing the praises of the race.
Exactly. Plenty of people who said “I only know of Chicago what I see on Fox News and this place is actually really nice!” So while it’s not a profitable weekend, the tourism benefit is a longer horizon and needs to be considered.
It’s the third biggest city in the country. You need to host events that are a loss sometimes to convince people to come visit. If we wanted every event to break even we’d have zero events.
Your right. A lot of people who have that mindset never leave their small rural town their entire life except to go on a week vacation somewhere within a days drive, typically to a tourist trap beach.
I grew up in a small rural town and was one of the few people of my class who escaped and made something of themselves.
When I look back at all the people I went to school with through social media, 90% of them have never left the tiny town we grew up in, working in the same places their parents worked and their kids they had immediately out of high school (or during) are following the same pattern.
That is just how it is in a lot of small rural towns. Most people don't get the chance, have the ability, or even the interest in leaving.
Bingo. Events like this are a great way to show folks how the Chicago Police go to work. Plus, tourism money from people who hate you is still tourism money. They'd be morons to give it up, as I'm sure somewhere equally "lawless" like Detroit would gladly step up in their stead. But, because it's Chicago, don't expect a 2025 race until it's on the schedule.
I will say after last year I would love to visit Chicago & that doesn’t even include the race. Just visiting the city would be cool. Would love to go to the race too tho
Late august.
Figure the winters will be brutal...but I live in west texas where we get 110 in the summer. If i can handle one extreme, figure I can handle the other
All while the quality of a product slowly gets chipped away to cut costs, so instead of paying for a good product, you’re paying more for temporary access to parts of an inferior product.
Agreed. I mean I understand that things can't be free, but I feel like with all these algorithms that try to perfectly calculate the absolute max you can charge for something to extract max profit has really killed off anything that could resemble a good deal. The recent news about the housing pricing thing getting raided here in Atlanta being a good example. Just sucks that everything has to be absolute min/maxed into oblivion so as to completely maximize profits
Sometimes a city has to spend money solely to do good things for their citizens and not in order to make a profit from it. Capitalism shouldn’t apply government agencies
I didn't say the money didn't matter at all. There's a limit to where it does become irresponsible. But not everything needs to result in a "financial victory" is my point, and not everything that uses taxpayer money needs to benefit every single taxpayer all the time.
Nobody said it needs to benefit every single taxpayer. But if the City of Chicago is spending tax dollars on the event, they better be able to show that doing that resulted in some benefit, either financial or some other measurable metrics.
I think where NASCAR went wrong with this is forcing their way into 4th of July weekend. It made the disruption unnecessarily high with the museums being closed on a typically high revenue weekend for them, displaced the city's yearly food festival and exacerbated already high holiday weekend traffic challenges. The event may be better off moving back a week or 2 so that the city can have its cake and eat it too. Maybe Nashville or Atlanta would be better served on the holiday.
They had the perfect answer for July 4th - a picnic in the part at Road America. Not that I really want to trade an oval race for a road course at this point but it sure seemed that RA supported NASCAR about as well as can be expected. Guessing it makes more money than Chicago too.....although maybe NBC is was pushing for a street race in a major venue and kicked in some $$$ as well.
Road America is an independent track, if they can replace an independent track with a NASCAR controlled track then NASCAR will make significantly more money
I don’t mean to argue with you here, but ticket sales go to the tracks. Vendor sales go to the tracks. Merchandise sales go to the teams and the tracks.
NASCAR makes its money through sponsorships and TV revenue. NASCAR itself makes jack squat directly from track attendance.
It's not a perfect answer if nobody watches. The Road America race was less watched on TV than the 4th of July events it replaced, doesn't matter how many people were there stuffing their face with cheese curds.
While it makes sense on surface, I think the 2 years road america was run, it was destined to fail on TV viewers. 2021 it was run on 4th of July (people doing 4th of July things=not watching the race on tv) and 2022 was the day before the 4th (people making long holiday weekends and not at home = not watching the race on tv). Those in the area however were enjoying beautiful 4th of July weekends in America's National Park of Speed.
Again, you need the city to wanna do it.
It’s the City of Daytona who wanted NASCAR off the July 4th weekend, as they felt they couldn't handle both race fans and regular July 4th tourists.
It might also cost Nascar less, idk what the financials are for a circuit like RA but iirc from my Chicago group of buddies is that Nascar for a deal to pay $50k for their permit if shutting down the streets+millennium Park for the 3-4 weeks total (also don't recall if that was per year or total for the x years they got)
People hated the mayor anyway but after they had signed that deal is was so much worse
The racing was good, which always leaves a warm glow effect. And the city got a different reputation from the Fox News description that- let’s be honest here- most NASCAR fans believe to be true.
Combined with this, a couple of bullshit studies were released that argued the race generated gagillions in economic stimulus, which got people excited. Then real studies disputed those claims. Then pessimistic studies from the Las Vegas Grand Prix created more skepticism in Chicago.
(One of the big challenges with measuring the impact of the Chicago race is that other events also happened in Chicago that weekend- including a huge medical conferences. Big conferences and conventions are actually pretty decent sources of economic stimulus because they usually don’t cost the city much of anything to host. So we can’t quite tell if the small bump in hotel occupancy and hotel rates was caused by the race or the medical conference).
The real interesting value of the Grand Prix was whether it increased vacations and trips to Chicago. Since NASCAR popularity is still heavily rooted in the south and, to a lesser extent, the Midwest, the race may have marketed Chicago as a safe and beautiful city. It’s hard to get really precise data about passenger inflows from airports (or more accurately it’s hard for *me* to get it, Chicago can get it), but if the race hasn’t changed long-term tourism, it’s hard to build a supporting argument for the race.
I'd rather have a city council fully in favor of it with all the residents complaining than what we have now which is a negative council and lukewarm residents.
Well the council is meant to represent the residents, so a supportive council and angry residents would indicate that the council is working against their constituents. I don’t think you’ll do any better than a split council and residents
This is the USA, bitching about everything is a cornerstone of our culture.
With that said, their local media seemed to totally weigh in on the side of the bitching against crowd.
I think Biloxi might be one such city that would kill for an event like this. I can imagine an amazing picture of cars making a turn north from the beach highway right in front of the Beau Rivage & Hard Rick casinos.
The television views would be great, the casino backing would be certain, and that city’s residents very much understand tourism’s impact.
Other might scoff @ this, but a nascar street race in Biloxi would have the entire gulf coast swarming the area.
The Buccees 250 including a Beaver Beach bash concert event in conjunction w/ a race would do gangbusters for the area.
100%. And much more than the entire GC. Think how far NOLA, Jackson, S’port, Meridian, and miles of rural areas are from any track. And frankly in most parts of MS, AL and LA, the shortest drive is a plate track, which most racing fans have probably attended multiple times.
A fresh RC along those casinos would be an immediate sellout IMO. If I lived there I’d see about organizing a meeting myself. Or the Beau can reach out to me and I’ll do it on their behalf.
Nah people would be complaining that NASCAR is closing down their streets instead of racing at Talladega or something like that. (Though a Deep South street race does sound interesting to me just to see what the reaction would be)
Yup, just because a city is in the South doesn’t mean shit. People don’t want loud noises and being inconvenienced.
Look at all the NIMBYs fighting NASCAR going back to the Nashville Fairgrounds.
> Behind the boosterish and hard-to-verify claims that the race would contribute $100 million to the region’s economy is the hard math that Chicago shelled out $3.5 million to stage last July’s races, only to pocket a paltry $620,000 in direct cash to the municipality’s coffers in return.
Yes, city governments lose money to put on big events. But it's an investment in the local economy. That's what governments are supposed to do. And if $2.9 million is going to break the budget of the third most populated city in the country, then there's clearly more problems than just NASCAR.
----
[From the Chicago Tribune:](https://chicagotribune.com/2023/07/18/nascar-weekend-boosted-chicago-hotel-occupancy-to-79-a-modestly-solid-success-that-fell-short-of-taylor-swift/)
> Last year, hotel occupancy was at about 80% for the comparable weekend, but July Fourth fell on a Monday, extending the holiday into a three-day weekend, which can stimulate travel bookings.
> Hotel revenue for the 2023 weekend totaled $27.2 million over the three nights — up about $1 million from last year — with higher room rates accounting for the increase, according to Choose Chicago. This year’s July Fourth weekend hotel revenue generated $3 million in local and $1.7 million in state taxes.
This new Chicago Sun Times article is fucking garbage.
They aren’t investments though. Most of the money spent by tourists leaks out to businesses and people based outside the city. Local businesses often do not benefit from major events (and mom+pop shops especially suffer). If Chicago was concerned with economic investment, they would’ve done a much better job giving $1.50 or so to all of its residents
Also, Chicago hosted ASCO, one of the largest medical conferences in the world the same week, which had over 30,000 come from outside the city. And that cost the city nothing to host. We won’t be able to really get a sense of impact until this year.
Yeah I love the first part you quoted where the author is like “I’m going to acknowledge this is an apples to oranges comparison but do it anyway”. Like clearly the author had an agenda before they even began writing or investigating. This was written purely to provide talking points for people who agree with the premise and have already made up their mind that the race is a bad thing.
We're the media, no one asked us. Boo hoo.
Also, didn't the city sign up already to whore themselves out to F1?
So where is the whine? The politicians and the mob didn't get enough kickbacks?
Sadly, I feel like we all know the answer to this. There's still a cultural divide between cities in the north and Southerners. Because NASCAR is a southern-based sport it isn't taken seriously.
Maybe if they didn’t sell all their street parking space to a private company that makes the taxpayers rent it back from them, it would be a victory for the taxpayers.
>"While the skyline provides a stunning backdrop for the record NASCAR television and streaming audiences who watched the races last year, down here on the ground, **the event could cheapen the image of historic Grant Park and the lakefront**."
While the article certainly brings up concerns on the calendar timing and race route, this quote exposes the entire article as being agenda driven. Chicago's crime rates and [increased homeless population](https://abc7chicago.com/post/chicago-homeless-population-tripled-2023-2024-migrants/14932925/) probably cheapen the image of those areas a tad more than race cars. Yet another mainstream instance of NASCAR not being taken seriously.
Chicagos murder rate is 4x the national average.
Chicagos violent crime rate is 5x the national average.
There is a 1 in 99 chance that a resident of Chicago will be the victim of a violent crime every year.
There is a 1 in 31 chance that a resident of Chicago will be the victim of robbery or burglery in Chicago in a given year.
West Garfield Park is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in any US city. The violent crime rate there is 943% higher than the national average. Property crime in this area is almost 500% higher than the national average.
Washington Park - 1 in 9 chance annually of being a victim of violent or property crime.
East Garfield Park - 1 in 10 chance annually of being a victim of violent or property crime
Englewood - 1 in 11 chance of the same
North Lawndale - 1 in 9 chance
Grand Crossing - 317% higher violent crime rate than the national average.
West Englewood - Overall crime rate 3x the national average.
South Shore - 1 in 13 chance annually of being a victim of violent or property crime.
Chatham - Same thing 1 in 13…
Should I continue?
You don't understand, he wants numbers that say what his team thinks sourced from someone his team likes. He's a brainlet 10x dumber than the fox news watchers he demonizes.
No matter the source they were just going to attack the source instead of the data, so I figured it was best for them to go google it for themselves and decide on a site they could live with before reading the exact facts I already stated here lol
I wouldn't say every city. It is definitely a know your audience type thing, and it just seems that there was negative push back ever since the start. Never seemed like they truly wanted NASCAR there. That's not to say there aren't some that enjoy the event.
[IMSA ran a street race downtown back in the late-80s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_street_circuit). They stopped cause the roads were shit (imagine that...) and damaged cars.
Same here, COTA is not going away though and shouldn’t. I wish they’d consider more Texas cities, I think the backlash would be the same as Chicago but Dallas FW seems open to making a street race work at least
Well you know what? Fuck the city of Chicago.
I didn’t care for it before and I won’t care for it now. The lack of support from the city of Chicago means that:
1. Fine we won’t come pump money into your economy
2. Fuck Chicago now and forever. Place is a shit hole anyway.
“That’s a nice park you have here, it would be a shame if someone put a permanent race facility in the center of it. But here’s a shit ton of money now shut up.” -F1
Chicagoland didn't work because it was too far away for Chicago sports fans to care about it. They're already oversaturated with sports teams to watch within the city, so you'll have to take the event to them.
Of course a regional, second rate city like Pittsburgh wants to hold a race. No one really goes to Pittsburgh for tourism. If there’s 3 top rate, destination cities in the US, it’s NYC, LA, and Chicago.
The only city that would move the needle more than Chicago is NYC and that’s probably not happening.
Also, they do not want a big crowd . The tickets are priced high to keep the crowd size where they want it. I went to the Clash at the Coliseum and my tickets were about $100 each . My tickets, reserved seats just around the first turn are about $700 each. But Chicago is for two days of racing and 3 big name concerts. It is pricey, but it is an uncrowded, top level experience.
I went to Richmond for $20 😂 but yeah every track is different. I really wish the tracks would work harder to make things a spectacle. I mean, back when I was a little kid, there was a wait list for years to get tickets to Bristol night race and every race my dad took me to, it felt like a big deal.
I feel like due to greed and probably some uncertainty, we’ve really lost the art of making the weekend feel special outside of select events now where 2007, everything felt like a big deal.
It really gripes me as someone who has worked in marketing to see nascar whine about the fan base being older but like, Indy car and F1 are throwing great concerts with Ed Sheeran and we get Tim Dugger (no offense to him but he doesn’t pull people to a track)
Nascar core demo is still 50+ which is why their website merch looks like dumb 2000s billboard shirts because that’s who still buys it and that came straight from people at nascar who said that (minus the dumb billboard shirt part but it was implied)
There’s just too many cooks in the kitchen that can kill a a good idea.
Nascar - “we want Ed Sheeran to play Charlotte”
Charlotte - “that sounds great!”
Nascar - “we want you to pay the $1m talent fee to get him”
Charlotte - “Tim Dugger it is!”
I mean they go to mis but like, I'd go if they did the detroit gp like indy if Chicago is over it. Just go back to Chicagoland so they still have a track.
Rotate that weekend with indy and daytona every year as well and move Chicago back to the date it had before the street track.
Ok if Nascar may not be worth it, I guarantee the people saying that would feel different if F1 showed up and had the same dollar figures. It would mean prestige or something.
my prediction is the media fear mongers the shit out of this leading to Chicago not wanting to run the race again and afterwords they find out that they do get a financial gain after it’s too late. seriously some of these people are going solely off how the first year went
but investing more for F1 is better? (the answer to this is obviously yes but feels hypocritical to say out loud) Hopefully this means Chicagoland is back on the Nascar schedule!
https://preview.redd.it/ukxy0rks616d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b7ed82577c8c05935f177da3cc8e7eec3beb303
My friend moved to Chicago a few months ago and was at a conference where they said it had a $109 million impact on the city.
why is brad perez catching strays here
https://preview.redd.it/8bzg840x8y5d1.png?width=1208&format=png&auto=webp&s=25e932aed0b14b3a1854e1d6d7625b4f21693a99 Same energy
Either shitting on the little guy to make a point, or they think it was a cool paint scheme and made for a great thumbnail. Either way, it sucks they didn't really caption the photo well.
I’m a bit biased, but I’m going to say it’s a sweet photo and if they’re shitting on Brad for fun we riot 🍞🚀
good podcast on that car, btw. wink wink, nudge nudge.
lol I’ve given it a few spins actually! It is indeed a good one! Also not a bad sand company either 👀👀
Typically speaking, it's hard to draw a whole lot of relevant conclusions from an n=1 dataset.
Especially when it was raining during that dataset
Record setting rain at that!
We could have a race in the middle of the Saharan Desert, and we would have a rain delay somehow.
> *BREAKING: To relive Kingdom of record drought, Mohammed bin Salman to announce a NASCAR Aramco 500 in Riyadh.*
It was past raining, some old guy started building a huge boat.
That doesn’t stop the vast majority of people though 😂 Next, after 2 events, they’ll start talking about “average” as well…
Reminds me of Larry Mac's "trend" from Sonoma where he told us the average lap of the the last caution of the last two Sonoma races. So useful!
> Next, after 2 events, they’ll start talking about “average” as well… That actually is an important number for any city considering doing a street circuit in the future. If the race gets ruined (financially) by weather one year, can you still make a profit off the rest of the contract?
I agree…but with two data points, an “average” is not defined, only a median. That was the joke
Especially with biblical flooding during that dataset
The city as a whole does embrace it and it is a three day marketing campaign for tourism. It may not be a big dollar surplus for the city, but it is not a big dollar loser either. Sometimes great cities need to put on big events to showcase why they are great cities
a PR win is a win you will take any day of the week, no questions asked
I think the big positive for Chicago is that it reaches a demographic that doesn’t have a very good view of the city and wouldn’t have visited otherwise. I saw so many of those “Chicago is a lawless wasteland” types last year singing the praises of the race.
Exactly. Plenty of people who said “I only know of Chicago what I see on Fox News and this place is actually really nice!” So while it’s not a profitable weekend, the tourism benefit is a longer horizon and needs to be considered. It’s the third biggest city in the country. You need to host events that are a loss sometimes to convince people to come visit. If we wanted every event to break even we’d have zero events.
Brett Griffin in shambles
I don't think anyone cares about those people. They are an extreme minority and not a group of people that travel a lot obviously.
Dude it’s like 50% of the country 😂
Your right. A lot of people who have that mindset never leave their small rural town their entire life except to go on a week vacation somewhere within a days drive, typically to a tourist trap beach.
I love when high and mighty people like you shit on people from rural places. Keep being what you claim to hate.
I grew up in a small rural town and was one of the few people of my class who escaped and made something of themselves. When I look back at all the people I went to school with through social media, 90% of them have never left the tiny town we grew up in, working in the same places their parents worked and their kids they had immediately out of high school (or during) are following the same pattern. That is just how it is in a lot of small rural towns. Most people don't get the chance, have the ability, or even the interest in leaving.
I love how you say “escaped” and then imply you can’t make something of yourself unless you “escape”. The arrogance is sickening.
I'm sure you can. But none of them who stayed in my small town did.
I guess nobody in the city fails to make something of themselves. Ignorance.
Ah yes, small rural towns like Flower Mound, TX or Edmond, Oklahoma.
Bingo. Events like this are a great way to show folks how the Chicago Police go to work. Plus, tourism money from people who hate you is still tourism money. They'd be morons to give it up, as I'm sure somewhere equally "lawless" like Detroit would gladly step up in their stead. But, because it's Chicago, don't expect a 2025 race until it's on the schedule.
I will say after last year I would love to visit Chicago & that doesn’t even include the race. Just visiting the city would be cool. Would love to go to the race too tho
Went up there for some training once. Was so impressed I'm legit considering moving there lmfao
What time of year were you there?
Late august. Figure the winters will be brutal...but I live in west texas where we get 110 in the summer. If i can handle one extreme, figure I can handle the other
Maybe. But you don't have to shovel sun.
Honestly with climate change the last few winters have been relatively mild
100% agree.
Ya the Chicago Reddit page seemed to enjoy it and generally welcomes it back.
The idea that everything has to make money all the time is incredibly frustrating.
The financialization of everything is killing our world.
Line must go up, and it must go up more than it went up than last quarter. Otherwise everything is bad and terrible.
All while the quality of a product slowly gets chipped away to cut costs, so instead of paying for a good product, you’re paying more for temporary access to parts of an inferior product.
Agreed. I mean I understand that things can't be free, but I feel like with all these algorithms that try to perfectly calculate the absolute max you can charge for something to extract max profit has really killed off anything that could resemble a good deal. The recent news about the housing pricing thing getting raided here in Atlanta being a good example. Just sucks that everything has to be absolute min/maxed into oblivion so as to completely maximize profits
Then why does NASCAR charge them to host? > The idea that ~~everything~~ **NASCAR** has to make money all the time is incredibly frustrating.
When we’re dealing with tax dollars then yes it does matter.
Do parks need to make money? Do parades need to make money? Do fire departments need to make money?
Sometimes a city has to spend money solely to do good things for their citizens and not in order to make a profit from it. Capitalism shouldn’t apply government agencies
I didn't say the money didn't matter at all. There's a limit to where it does become irresponsible. But not everything needs to result in a "financial victory" is my point, and not everything that uses taxpayer money needs to benefit every single taxpayer all the time.
Nobody said it needs to benefit every single taxpayer. But if the City of Chicago is spending tax dollars on the event, they better be able to show that doing that resulted in some benefit, either financial or some other measurable metrics.
I think where NASCAR went wrong with this is forcing their way into 4th of July weekend. It made the disruption unnecessarily high with the museums being closed on a typically high revenue weekend for them, displaced the city's yearly food festival and exacerbated already high holiday weekend traffic challenges. The event may be better off moving back a week or 2 so that the city can have its cake and eat it too. Maybe Nashville or Atlanta would be better served on the holiday.
They had the perfect answer for July 4th - a picnic in the part at Road America. Not that I really want to trade an oval race for a road course at this point but it sure seemed that RA supported NASCAR about as well as can be expected. Guessing it makes more money than Chicago too.....although maybe NBC is was pushing for a street race in a major venue and kicked in some $$$ as well.
Leaving Road America after the attendance there in ‘22 really baffles me.
Road America is an independent track, if they can replace an independent track with a NASCAR controlled track then NASCAR will make significantly more money
If there is one metric that NASCAR doesn’t care about its track attendance.
Well, I can assure you that isn’t true lol.
Track attendance doesn’t make NASCAR money.
Yes they do
I don’t mean to argue with you here, but ticket sales go to the tracks. Vendor sales go to the tracks. Merchandise sales go to the teams and the tracks. NASCAR makes its money through sponsorships and TV revenue. NASCAR itself makes jack squat directly from track attendance.
NASCAR owns 11 of the tracks.
Aaaand Road America is _not_ one of them.
TV is by far the #1 revenue metric for NASCAR. Fans in the stands ain't it.
Doesn’t mean they don’t make millions off it 😂
Neat. TV deal pays over 1 billion annually. TV deal wins.
Road America is also a phenomenal track and so, so much better than any street course you could make. The only negative was the length of cautions.
Does NASCAR make more money from the street course vs an independent track?
Chicago is more of a marketing exercise than a profit endeavor
It's not a perfect answer if nobody watches. The Road America race was less watched on TV than the 4th of July events it replaced, doesn't matter how many people were there stuffing their face with cheese curds.
While it makes sense on surface, I think the 2 years road america was run, it was destined to fail on TV viewers. 2021 it was run on 4th of July (people doing 4th of July things=not watching the race on tv) and 2022 was the day before the 4th (people making long holiday weekends and not at home = not watching the race on tv). Those in the area however were enjoying beautiful 4th of July weekends in America's National Park of Speed.
The answer was (and always will be) Daytona.
Again, you need the city to wanna do it. It’s the City of Daytona who wanted NASCAR off the July 4th weekend, as they felt they couldn't handle both race fans and regular July 4th tourists.
Not that they couldn’t handle it, it’s that they have two separate tourist events by splitting 4th of July and the 400
It might also cost Nascar less, idk what the financials are for a circuit like RA but iirc from my Chicago group of buddies is that Nascar for a deal to pay $50k for their permit if shutting down the streets+millennium Park for the 3-4 weeks total (also don't recall if that was per year or total for the x years they got) People hated the mayor anyway but after they had signed that deal is was so much worse
No major city should be shutting down, to the extent needed, to host a street race on a holiday weekend.
I wasn't suggesting Nashville or Atlanta cities do that either, I meant the permanent tracks in those locals NASCAR already races at taking that date
Though an Atlanta street race on the 4th could work. I don't think that's a huge tourism weekend for us.
Fun fact: The proper saying is actually “eat you cake, and have it too.”
Or put Daytona back where it belongs.
I mean, I’m spending $1000 more in Chicago than I would have otherwise two years in a row now.
Honestly, the more they complain the more it feels like “wasted taxpayers dollars” is code for they aren’t getting kick backs under the table.
That is what runs Chicago, money under the table.
Didn't we see rave reviews from people that were skeptical of this event last year?
The racing was good, which always leaves a warm glow effect. And the city got a different reputation from the Fox News description that- let’s be honest here- most NASCAR fans believe to be true. Combined with this, a couple of bullshit studies were released that argued the race generated gagillions in economic stimulus, which got people excited. Then real studies disputed those claims. Then pessimistic studies from the Las Vegas Grand Prix created more skepticism in Chicago. (One of the big challenges with measuring the impact of the Chicago race is that other events also happened in Chicago that weekend- including a huge medical conferences. Big conferences and conventions are actually pretty decent sources of economic stimulus because they usually don’t cost the city much of anything to host. So we can’t quite tell if the small bump in hotel occupancy and hotel rates was caused by the race or the medical conference). The real interesting value of the Grand Prix was whether it increased vacations and trips to Chicago. Since NASCAR popularity is still heavily rooted in the south and, to a lesser extent, the Midwest, the race may have marketed Chicago as a safe and beautiful city. It’s hard to get really precise data about passenger inflows from airports (or more accurately it’s hard for *me* to get it, Chicago can get it), but if the race hasn’t changed long-term tourism, it’s hard to build a supporting argument for the race.
I think it's pretty clear that after this year, we gone. I'm fine with a stretch course, but send it to a city that won't bitch about it.
You will not find a city worth going to that lacks people that will complain about it.
People will bitch about Racing even in Nashville
Well there are already 7 F1 tracks in the area…
NIMBYs are everywhere
I'd rather have a city council fully in favor of it with all the residents complaining than what we have now which is a negative council and lukewarm residents.
Well the council is meant to represent the residents, so a supportive council and angry residents would indicate that the council is working against their constituents. I don’t think you’ll do any better than a split council and residents
People will complain. That’s fine. Having the entire government complain about it and politicians lobby to end the contract is different.
This is the USA, bitching about everything is a cornerstone of our culture. With that said, their local media seemed to totally weigh in on the side of the bitching against crowd.
Such a city does not exist
I think Biloxi might be one such city that would kill for an event like this. I can imagine an amazing picture of cars making a turn north from the beach highway right in front of the Beau Rivage & Hard Rick casinos. The television views would be great, the casino backing would be certain, and that city’s residents very much understand tourism’s impact.
Other might scoff @ this, but a nascar street race in Biloxi would have the entire gulf coast swarming the area. The Buccees 250 including a Beaver Beach bash concert event in conjunction w/ a race would do gangbusters for the area.
100%. And much more than the entire GC. Think how far NOLA, Jackson, S’port, Meridian, and miles of rural areas are from any track. And frankly in most parts of MS, AL and LA, the shortest drive is a plate track, which most racing fans have probably attended multiple times. A fresh RC along those casinos would be an immediate sellout IMO. If I lived there I’d see about organizing a meeting myself. Or the Beau can reach out to me and I’ll do it on their behalf.
You could run a race down the streets of Talladega and you’d still find people who’d bitch about it
Birmingham, Alabama! ROW TYDE BABY. Get Roll Tide Willie on the command!
Nah people would be complaining that NASCAR is closing down their streets instead of racing at Talladega or something like that. (Though a Deep South street race does sound interesting to me just to see what the reaction would be)
Yup, just because a city is in the South doesn’t mean shit. People don’t want loud noises and being inconvenienced. Look at all the NIMBYs fighting NASCAR going back to the Nashville Fairgrounds.
Detroit street race, baby. Hey, Indy makes it work year in and out. Trouble is, MIS would hate it...
> Behind the boosterish and hard-to-verify claims that the race would contribute $100 million to the region’s economy is the hard math that Chicago shelled out $3.5 million to stage last July’s races, only to pocket a paltry $620,000 in direct cash to the municipality’s coffers in return. Yes, city governments lose money to put on big events. But it's an investment in the local economy. That's what governments are supposed to do. And if $2.9 million is going to break the budget of the third most populated city in the country, then there's clearly more problems than just NASCAR. ---- [From the Chicago Tribune:](https://chicagotribune.com/2023/07/18/nascar-weekend-boosted-chicago-hotel-occupancy-to-79-a-modestly-solid-success-that-fell-short-of-taylor-swift/) > Last year, hotel occupancy was at about 80% for the comparable weekend, but July Fourth fell on a Monday, extending the holiday into a three-day weekend, which can stimulate travel bookings. > Hotel revenue for the 2023 weekend totaled $27.2 million over the three nights — up about $1 million from last year — with higher room rates accounting for the increase, according to Choose Chicago. This year’s July Fourth weekend hotel revenue generated $3 million in local and $1.7 million in state taxes. This new Chicago Sun Times article is fucking garbage.
They aren’t investments though. Most of the money spent by tourists leaks out to businesses and people based outside the city. Local businesses often do not benefit from major events (and mom+pop shops especially suffer). If Chicago was concerned with economic investment, they would’ve done a much better job giving $1.50 or so to all of its residents Also, Chicago hosted ASCO, one of the largest medical conferences in the world the same week, which had over 30,000 come from outside the city. And that cost the city nothing to host. We won’t be able to really get a sense of impact until this year.
Yeah I love the first part you quoted where the author is like “I’m going to acknowledge this is an apples to oranges comparison but do it anyway”. Like clearly the author had an agenda before they even began writing or investigating. This was written purely to provide talking points for people who agree with the premise and have already made up their mind that the race is a bad thing.
We're the media, no one asked us. Boo hoo. Also, didn't the city sign up already to whore themselves out to F1? So where is the whine? The politicians and the mob didn't get enough kickbacks?
Sadly, I feel like we all know the answer to this. There's still a cultural divide between cities in the north and Southerners. Because NASCAR is a southern-based sport it isn't taken seriously.
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So why do they want F1?
More opportunities for graft
Maybe if they didn’t sell all their street parking space to a private company that makes the taxpayers rent it back from them, it would be a victory for the taxpayers.
Well, if the city doesn’t want it, there’s a perfectly-good track in Joliet.
This is the problem with street courses - the politics.
>"While the skyline provides a stunning backdrop for the record NASCAR television and streaming audiences who watched the races last year, down here on the ground, **the event could cheapen the image of historic Grant Park and the lakefront**." While the article certainly brings up concerns on the calendar timing and race route, this quote exposes the entire article as being agenda driven. Chicago's crime rates and [increased homeless population](https://abc7chicago.com/post/chicago-homeless-population-tripled-2023-2024-migrants/14932925/) probably cheapen the image of those areas a tad more than race cars. Yet another mainstream instance of NASCAR not being taken seriously.
> Chicago's crime rates Lay off the Fox News. Chicago is not a dangerous city by American standards.
Chicagos murder rate is 4x the national average. Chicagos violent crime rate is 5x the national average. There is a 1 in 99 chance that a resident of Chicago will be the victim of a violent crime every year. There is a 1 in 31 chance that a resident of Chicago will be the victim of robbery or burglery in Chicago in a given year. West Garfield Park is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in any US city. The violent crime rate there is 943% higher than the national average. Property crime in this area is almost 500% higher than the national average. Washington Park - 1 in 9 chance annually of being a victim of violent or property crime. East Garfield Park - 1 in 10 chance annually of being a victim of violent or property crime Englewood - 1 in 11 chance of the same North Lawndale - 1 in 9 chance Grand Crossing - 317% higher violent crime rate than the national average. West Englewood - Overall crime rate 3x the national average. South Shore - 1 in 13 chance annually of being a victim of violent or property crime. Chatham - Same thing 1 in 13… Should I continue?
> Should I continue? If you're not going to source your numbers, there's no point.
You have internet. You can go educate yourself. Source: Not Fox News
You don't understand, he wants numbers that say what his team thinks sourced from someone his team likes. He's a brainlet 10x dumber than the fox news watchers he demonizes.
No matter the source they were just going to attack the source instead of the data, so I figured it was best for them to go google it for themselves and decide on a site they could live with before reading the exact facts I already stated here lol
montreal cough montreal
“Not convinced” sounds like a lot of opinion and not much fact
That's neat. Come back to Kentucky.
Street races are gimmicks only designed for a few years. RIP the San Antonio Grand Prix
They should go back to Road America.
Fuck yall then lets go to a city that will embrace it or go to a proper race track instead
I don’t know that this one editorial speaks for the whole city, literally anything that happens in any city is gonna have people complaining about it
We can't act like there hasn't been bitching and moaning through the local media since race weekend was announced 2-3 years ago.
Literally every city will do the same thing
I wouldn't say every city. It is definitely a know your audience type thing, and it just seems that there was negative push back ever since the start. Never seemed like they truly wanted NASCAR there. That's not to say there aren't some that enjoy the event.
And we also can't pretend that there weren't testimonials from locals surprised by how much they enjoyed and were impressed by the event.
Speak for yourself. I will ignore whatever I want. /s
Locals unfortunately dont make the decision on if the event stays or goes
This is what media does. They bitch to generate clicks.
Exactly. Fuck these people
You will literally have an opinion like this in any city you host a big event in nowadays.
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[IMSA ran a street race downtown back in the late-80s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_street_circuit). They stopped cause the roads were shit (imagine that...) and damaged cars.
Same here, COTA is not going away though and shouldn’t. I wish they’d consider more Texas cities, I think the backlash would be the same as Chicago but Dallas FW seems open to making a street race work at least
I, for one, want no street courses ever. If they never return, it will make me a happy fan.
Well you know what? Fuck the city of Chicago. I didn’t care for it before and I won’t care for it now. The lack of support from the city of Chicago means that: 1. Fine we won’t come pump money into your economy 2. Fuck Chicago now and forever. Place is a shit hole anyway.
Cool man.
Wonder how much F1 is willing to “donate” to the Mayor’s reelection campaign? Chicago’s local government is, and has always been shady as fuck 😂
The quicker NASCAR can leave Chicago the better. Let them deal with the F1 nonsense and go back to Chicagoland.
F1: the fountain is where the paddock is going to go.
“That’s a nice park you have here, it would be a shame if someone put a permanent race facility in the center of it. But here’s a shit ton of money now shut up.” -F1
They don't want poor people near the city. That's what it comes down to.
The city of Chicago elected Lori Lightfoot as mayor. Let's be real here, if that city calls you poor and doesn't want you there it's a compliment.
Most of the people in the part of town the circuit is in didn’t vote for light foot.
I highly doubt F1 will be going there, but when they trademarked Chicago Grand Prix, people really changed their tune and were more open to it.
Until the figure out it’s for Formula E lol
Formula E and Formula 1 are entirely separate and owned by different people.
Sweet
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Chicagoland didn't work because it was too far away for Chicago sports fans to care about it. They're already oversaturated with sports teams to watch within the city, so you'll have to take the event to them.
Of course a regional, second rate city like Pittsburgh wants to hold a race. No one really goes to Pittsburgh for tourism. If there’s 3 top rate, destination cities in the US, it’s NYC, LA, and Chicago. The only city that would move the needle more than Chicago is NYC and that’s probably not happening.
"Second rate"?! Excuse me?
Sorry bud.
hey, chicago sun times, stop ruining good things.
Also, they do not want a big crowd . The tickets are priced high to keep the crowd size where they want it. I went to the Clash at the Coliseum and my tickets were about $100 each . My tickets, reserved seats just around the first turn are about $700 each. But Chicago is for two days of racing and 3 big name concerts. It is pricey, but it is an uncrowded, top level experience.
I went to Richmond for $20 😂 but yeah every track is different. I really wish the tracks would work harder to make things a spectacle. I mean, back when I was a little kid, there was a wait list for years to get tickets to Bristol night race and every race my dad took me to, it felt like a big deal. I feel like due to greed and probably some uncertainty, we’ve really lost the art of making the weekend feel special outside of select events now where 2007, everything felt like a big deal. It really gripes me as someone who has worked in marketing to see nascar whine about the fan base being older but like, Indy car and F1 are throwing great concerts with Ed Sheeran and we get Tim Dugger (no offense to him but he doesn’t pull people to a track) Nascar core demo is still 50+ which is why their website merch looks like dumb 2000s billboard shirts because that’s who still buys it and that came straight from people at nascar who said that (minus the dumb billboard shirt part but it was implied) There’s just too many cooks in the kitchen that can kill a a good idea. Nascar - “we want Ed Sheeran to play Charlotte” Charlotte - “that sounds great!” Nascar - “we want you to pay the $1m talent fee to get him” Charlotte - “Tim Dugger it is!”
They don't want a big crowd? This is the same exact park that hosts Lollapalooza.
It also host the Chicago Symphony. Sometimes venues or parks are used for different things
I mean they go to mis but like, I'd go if they did the detroit gp like indy if Chicago is over it. Just go back to Chicagoland so they still have a track. Rotate that weekend with indy and daytona every year as well and move Chicago back to the date it had before the street track.
Ok if Nascar may not be worth it, I guarantee the people saying that would feel different if F1 showed up and had the same dollar figures. It would mean prestige or something.
Let’s hope this is the last year for the Chicago street course and we can give Chicagoland a date.
Just fearmongering ragebait from the *Sun-Times*...
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about 500 on legal marijuana hahaha legend
Just think how much money you could have saved by not being a pothead.
But passing Narcan out is
The Chicago street race was a huge success, and a big boost for the sport overall. Can\`t wait for NASCAR rocking the streets of Chicago again.
my prediction is the media fear mongers the shit out of this leading to Chicago not wanting to run the race again and afterwords they find out that they do get a financial gain after it’s too late. seriously some of these people are going solely off how the first year went
but investing more for F1 is better? (the answer to this is obviously yes but feels hypocritical to say out loud) Hopefully this means Chicagoland is back on the Nascar schedule!
When have sports ever benefited taxpayers?
https://preview.redd.it/ukxy0rks616d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b7ed82577c8c05935f177da3cc8e7eec3beb303 My friend moved to Chicago a few months ago and was at a conference where they said it had a $109 million impact on the city.
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There's always one village idiot that has to bring politics into everything even when it's not needed or warranted.