Why A Second Date At Las Vegas Will Work
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 10:44am CST
By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.
If you’re new around here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
We all know Bruton Smith bought New Hampshire, renamed it to fit within the SMI namig Scheme (New Hampshire Motor Speedway), changed the logo, and is spending money in addition to the $340 million price tag for the track.
What has run rampant since is that Bruton Smith didn’t necessarily buy the track, but bought the two coveted Cup dates that it had for the sole purpose of moving one of those dates to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Oh, that would be $170 million for each Cup date, if you’re counting.
Was it worth it for SMI, and will it be worth it for Las Vegas in return? It very well could be, and a profitable move at that.
Smith debuted his newly resurfaced track, complete with very racy graduated banking and a refreshed infield in September 2006 when the Craftsman Truck Series made its stop. The Cup Series first saw competition on the new surface in March of 2007. It was a much improved race.
Now with the new car set to make its competition debut (the teams tested there with it this past January), and thus far its shown that it’s going to put on a good show, one can only surmise that this weekends upcoming event at Las Vegas will consist of some really good racing. At least that’s what’s in the cards at the moment.
Back in 1998, there was a lot of optimism about the impact that NASCAR’s premiere series coming to town would have on the local economy. Sure it would benefit the track, but the concern was that the fans wouldn’t spend much money away from the track, leaving the only implications locally being traffic, traffic, and more traffic.
However as time proved, the impact to the local economy was in the $200 million range for their lone NASCAR date. Of that, approximately $70 million is attributed to the gaming industry.
Now, with the possibility of a second show coming to town, those initial concerns are non-existent. They’re chomping at the bit in anticipation of a second NASCAR weekend. Even if it doesn’t sell out, although the odds are that it will, or at least come really close.
The question though is, “Why is a second date a shoe-in for success as Las Vegas Motor Speedway?”
The answer is blatantly simple. It’s Las Vegas.
The entertainment capital of the world, and one of the easiest, cheapest places to go on vacation.
You can fly to Las Vegas pretty cheap from just about anywhere in the country. It’s a place people love to go to already, and add some racing into the mix and it’s even more attractive.
Attendance for the current Las Vegas race is estimated to be 60-70% non-local visitors. With that in mind there is some concern that doubling capacity won’t necessarily double occupancy, as perhaps those visitors won’t return for a second weekend.
Honestly, I don’t think it will be that big of an issue. One reason being that there are going to be people who can’t make it to the first one, that could make it to the second. Another being the same reasoning as I stated earlier. Flights and other amenities are cheap, well as cheap as you want them usually, and most definitely among the overall cheapest to attend if you don’t live locally. Of course you can spend more for certain things, and some places in town are more expensive than others. However, it’s not like other locations where rooms in the entire town go through the roof when NASCAR comes to town.
Taking all of these into account, and a few others I may have overlooked, that’s why not only one date in Las Vegas works, but also why it won’t be too difficult to make second one work just as well.
Whether it comes from New Hampshire, or another SMI track (read as maybe Atlanta, but that’s pure speculation) is anyone’s guess at this point. However, Bruton Smith has been dangling his checkbook for a long while in front of independent track owners in hopes of purchasing their track and Cup date(s). New Hampshire just happened to be the one that took him up on it.
Filed Under: Las Vegas, Nascar, New Hampshire, Sprint Cup, Tracks
Tagged As: Bruton Smith, Las Vegas, New Hampshire, SMI
Trackback URL for: Why A Second Date At Las Vegas Will Work
Loading...
Another reason why a 2nd Vegas date will work is that they will probably land a date in the Chase.
mike said this on February 26th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Absolutely, Mike.
SMI now has 4 dates in the Chase to play with, and I’ll bet 2009 is going to be an interesting mix up to the Chase as we now know it (in terms of dates).
Texas will be moved, and the odds are the New Hampshire’s September date will be in play for the move to Vegas, plus they have Atlanta and Charlotte as well.
Texas being now the first weekend of November clashes with opening of deer season, so they’re looking at moving that around a bit as well.
Lots of options, for sure. They could make Vegas the kick-off to the Chase, and then swap weekends with Atlanta. Then again, they could put Vegas where Texas is now, and move Texas to P1 for a Texas-sized kickoff to the Chase. Either way though, it’ll be a bit warm in September in Vegas or Texas. Heck, even Charlotte or Atlanta for that matter.
Either way you slice it though, there’s pretty good bets being laid down for changes to the 2009 schedule.