Former YES Network CEO Leo Hindery and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie today will announce F1 will come to the N.Y. area in '13. The race will be held on a 3.2-mile course in Weehawken and West New York, N.J., and spectators will be able to see the Hudson River and Manhattan in the background. Hindery said, "It will look like Monte Carlo but feel like Spa Belgium." Hindery expects a crowd of more than 100,000 people to attend and plans to price tickets at an average of $350 for the three-day event. Unlike other F1 races, Hindery's group is acquiring the rights to sell a race entitlement and trackside sponsorship for the event. The organizers are still in the process of planning their sponsorship sales and hospitality strategy. Trip Wheeler, President of the motorsports agency The Wheeler Co. and a former exec at Velocity (now Team Epic), will oversee sales and marketing for the race. His father, Humpy, the longtime president of Charlotte Motor Speedway, will consult on promotion. Tilke Engineers and Architects, a German-based firm that designed F1 racetracks in Bahrain and Shanghai, worked with Hindery to develop the course of the N.Y. race (Tripp Mickle, SportsBusiness Journal). In London, Lee Moran writes the announcement “will be the realisation” of F1 Management Chair Bernie Ecclestone's “dream to bring the race to New York -- something he has tried, and failed to do, several times since the 1970s.” The expected announcement “comes 30 years since Ecclestone's last serious attempt to set up an event" in New Jersey, and it is “part of his quest to strengthen Formula One's roots in the U.S.” (London DAILY MAIL, 10/25).
TALE OF TWO CITIES: YAHOO SPORTS’ Nick Bromberg noted while the N.Y. skyline “seems like an appealing worldwide destination for Formula 1, this means that the United States suddenly has two likely races on the F1 schedule in 2013.” And given this country's “history with the series, that's a tad perplexing” (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 10/24). The Texas Comptroller's office said that the N.Y. area F1 race “would not affect the $25 million-a-year subsidy of a Texas race from the state's Major Events Trust Fund.” Brooke Botello, a spokesperson for Texas Comptroller Susan Combs, said, "The New Jersey race has no bearing on the Austin race." Botello added that rules “regarding use of the fund would apply if a similar event were held in Texas, but not if it were being staged in another state or region” (AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN, 10/25). In London, Kevin Eason writes while public officials “appear open to the idea of a new venue for an American Grand Prix, it seems highly unlikely that any money would be authorised from the public purse to get the show on the road” (LONDON TIMES, 10/25).
THE DETAILS: F1 hasn't competed on U.S. soil in four years, and it stopped returning to Indianapolis Motor Speedway after an eight-year run largely because the economics didn't exist to support it. But that didn't dissuade Hindery, the Managing Partner of the private equity firm InterMedia Partners, from bringing a race to N.Y. In an interview yesterday, he explained his motives.
Q: Why are you bringing F1 to N.Y.?
Hindery: It was sort of born out of envy. Here was the top of the heap when it comes to motorsports, and it runs in the capitals of Europe. A decade ago it started in Asia and the Middle East. There's only one media capital in America, and it's New York. ... We've been the poor cousin. We haven't had our day in the sun.
Q: Will there be any government support?
Hindery: The thing that we're especially proud of is we're not getting a dime of support from the state or the towns. We're paying for that because it is a privilege. For a handful of days, we'll take over some roads. No one will be impeded from their homes. We're going to give them something that London and Frankfurt and Belgium and Spain have had for decades but no one has had here.
Q: How long has this process taken?
Hindery: Two full years. There were a lot of masters and the most important of which were the drivers. You have to give them a race that is competitive where the best car wins and the driver is safe and the fans have a good time. Everything else is secondary to that.
Q: You've made several successful investments over the years, but you're betting on Formula One, which has failed in the U.S. Why?
Hindery: For me, it was easy. It's New Jersey. New York. When I was younger, I went to all the Final Fours. I went to three of them with friends in Indianapolis. It's not a town that draws you back year after year. Formula One is an entertainment phenomenon, but you have to give them a town to be entertained in. A place where they can shop, they can fly in. I'm not naive about this. I wouldn't do this anywhere but here. ...This to me is no love affair. I'm not doing this because I love racing that much. I think it's going to be very profitable for investors and very successful for sponsors (Mickle).
